ALCOHOL – INTRODUCTION
Why can some people drink all their lives, yet never have trouble while others become addicted?
We are still not sure why but it is certainly not due to lack of willpower. The alcoholic drinks the way he (or she) drinks because he can’t drink any other way. He knows the consequences, yet he still drinks and, when he drinks, he and his family suffer. Alcohol seems to affect him differently from others. Perhaps he has an “allergy” to alcohol.
There is now some evidence that there is a definite inherited tendency to develop alcoholism, at least in men. The same pattern cannot be detected in women.
It has been well known that men whose fathers were alcoholic had a greater tendency than the average to become alcoholics. This was thought to be due to the behavioral effect and example of the parent. But it appears this is not so.
Adopted boys with a non-alcoholic father who grow up in a home with an adopted alcoholic father do not show an increase in alcoholism, but boys whose natural father is alcoholic and who grow up in a home with a non-alcoholic father do have a greater incidence of the problem.
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