rch on alcoholism suggests that it is indeed a combination of poor genetics and destructive behavior, with a greater emphasis on the former than the latter. The fact that alcoholism is to some extent under the control of the individual is important in terms of being able to reverse the condition - and for the individual's taking responsibility for his or her condition (something that would be entirely inappropriate for a disease like Tay-Sachs, which is entirely genetic and is not in any way linked to an individual's voluntary behavior). (Dawes etal., 1999).
It may sound somewhat odd to think about alcoholism as "learned behavior" - a term that we are more generally likely to apply to an activity like riding a bicycle or doing calculus. But a large body of literature (viz. Dawes etal., 1999) demonstrates that dysfunctional behavior (even highly dysfunctional behavior) can be learned as well. Any activity that is at least initially rewarding (or that is initially more pleasurable than the alternatives - which might mean that it hurts less in physical or emotional terms than the alternative) is something that people tend to repeat until it is an engraved behavior.
Tomer etal. (2001) argue that there is also a genetic element to alcoholism, although the connection between genetics and alcoholism is now less direct than it was once thought to be and there is a range of opinions on the subject within the scientific community. There is no single chromosome or cluster of chromosomes that has been linked to a tendency towards alcoholism or other addictive behaviors such as smoking (Atre
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