15 percent of the nation's health care costs and for lowered worker productivity which also costs American companies, organizations and industries substantial monies yearly. In this regard, Sue, Sue and Sue (1994) estimate that alcoholism costs society almost $50 billion per year.
Alcoholics also have higher suicide rates then average--up to 58 percent greater than norm for some groups; in addition, alcoholism is heavily involved in crime, automobile accidents, and problems related to domestic disruption and abuse (Kinney & Leaton, 1991). Finally, research indicates that children of alcoholics are especially vulnerable to a variety of psychosocial problems including social maladjustment, low self-esteem and self-deprecation; they are also especially vulnerable to the development of alcoholism themselves (Cooper & McCormick, 1992).
To the extent that the contribution of genetics to alcoholism is fully understood by medical, and behavioral/social scientists, society is in a better position to effectively deal with and hopefully remediate the problem and its related social and psychological consequences. Therefore, compiling a report on the most current findings regarding the genetic determinants of the condition and the relative magnitude to be assigned to genetics is an important and significant undertaking.
The first step in preparing this report was to use a CompuServe search of the following databases: (1) Medline; (2) EMBASE; (3) PsychInfo; and (4) Dissertation Abstracts International. Database search descriptors used during the search were: Alcoholism and Genetics, and Familial and Non-Familial Alcoholism.
Once several articles had been selected, attempts were made to obtain the articles from local college and university libraries. Most journals could be found but there were some that were not available. Other documents required special ordering.
All obtained documents were read and examined for two specific...