The Genetic Approach to Alcoholism
A common human disease, alcoholism may result from a variety of causes. A few of the contributing factors include cultural influences, environmental effects, and heredity. Recent scientific advances in molecular genetics, have focused particular attention on those aspects of the disease which are inherited. Certain researchers claim to have even identified a gene for susceptibility to alcoholism. These assertions have engendered considerable controversy. All sides do agree though, on the fact that the problem is exceedingly complex.
Alcoholism is a devastating condition afflicting a substantial segment of the population. It is perhaps one of the most common of the human diseases (3:145). Lifetime risk estimates range from between 3% and 5% among males and between 0.1% and 1% in females.
In addition, the etiology of alcoholism very complex. Cultural influences may involve such things as ethnic, religious, or gender attitudes toward alcohol use. Environmental issues can concern alcohol availability or peer pressure. Superimposed upon all of these different elements is a person's genetic make-up: various inherited characteristics are thought to result in vulnerability to alcoholism. Furthermore, this wide array of contributing factors can vary throughout a given family, across a span of time, and in different populations (6:243-244).
Thus, the etiologic influences with regard to alcohol use and-abuse constitute a complex system. A system can be defined as a "partially interconnected set of components" (8:223-229). Each component acts to influence--or is influenced by--the other elements. In an extremely complicated system, such as that of alcoholism, multiple variables make it difficult to delineate any specific causation. In fact, causal fields may arise where the "relative importance of every variable, genetic or environmental, is dependent to a greater or a lesser exte...