Is it because growing up with an alcoholic parent psychologically gravitates you towards it as well? If this is the case then I can understand that. But I’ve read that it’s genetic as well. How does that work if a parent became an alcoholic after their child was born? Or is it both psychological and genetic?
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Pretty much every human trait is a combination of nature and nurture,
A large component of it is biological. Some people have inherently high alcohol tolerance and can pour down drink after drink, bottle after bottle, and still function, while other people feel tipsy after one and might have to lie down or vomit after two or three. In addition to how much you can drink, there’s also how much you enjoy it. Some people feel bright and cheerful and outgoing and social as their inhibitions go away, while some people just feel sad and sick. (Personally, I find that about two or three drinks makes me feel sleepy). Additionally, there are after effects. Some people feel terribly hungover the morning after, while others feel perfectly fine.
All of these therefore cause people to have very different experiences with alcohol. If alcohol makes you miserable after two drinks, and then miserable the next morning, you’re very very unlikely to become an alcoholic. There’s no positive reinforcement to doing it. If alcohol makes you feel free and happy while drinking and you can keep drinking without passing out or feeling worse, then you’re more likely to drink more. Not guaranteed, but it’s more likely. To the extent that these traits are defined by some combination of how your brain, liver, and digestion work, and those are things which genes impact, it can run in families.
On top of all of these there are psychological factors. If your life sucks and you’re miserable all the time but alcohol is the only time you feel happy and comfortable, or just helps you not think about how much your life sucks, then you’re more likely to become alcoholic. If your life is wonderful and alcohol is also wonderful then you might go out and party with friends and drink sometimes but it’s less likely to become an addiction because you’re not reliant on it. If your life is wonderful but it’s dependent on an important and high paying job that requires you to be focused and productive then you’ll probably only drink on weekends, and it’s not an addiction.
And to a large extent, environments are also hereditary. Poor parents are more likely than average to have poor children. Alcoholic parents are more likely to create miserable children, especially if they’re abusive. And children learn from their environments, even unhealthy coping skills. If Timmy has an angry alcoholic dad who drinks beer, watches football, and beats up people weaker than him, then maybe Timmy learns that alcohol is evil and should be avoided, but maybe instead Timmy learns that it’s important to be tough enough that nobody can beat you up, so he grows up to copy all of the tough guy things like football, beer, and beating up people.
Of course it’s all complicated and each person ends up with their own unique circumstances. But there are similar trends for lots of traits being hereditary beyond simple genetics. But it’s almost always a combination of both, it’s just a question of how much of each.
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