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Thinking about the existence of the alcoholism gene I remember how last week some colleagues and I celebrated the birthday of our boss at a fashionable bar downtown.
alcoholism gene
Though I'm not a drinker and I don't like to consume alcohol at all, I couldn't avoid to notice that most of my office colleagues did enjoy their drinks some more than others, actually one of the long time secretaries of the company once confided in me and told me about her struggle against alcoholism and her fear that her children now teenagers would inherit her disease.
So I started to research a little bit about the subject. Why is it that some people like alcohol and actually crave it and why some others are just not interest on it at all?
We are all aware that drinking is fully accepted and even encouraged in society, back in day was even regarded as a remedy for the nerves, even today some people when feeling anxious go straight the liqueur cabinet thinking some of the goods there will provide them with some peace of mind.
Since we are children must of us have interact with alcohol regarding its consumption as something normal as a part of the social meetings and as something joyful because we noticed how our parents or other relatives enjoy their cheerful toasts. But there's also the dark side of the tale most of us saw how some of our acquaintances, even relatives ended up wasted in the bathroom floor, and there is the unfortunate and very common cases of children abused by some drunk close to them.
But how does this early experiences affect our lives while we grow up, besides of the natural trauma suffered by the one who experienced the severity of growing up with an alcoholic, let's say the average child of a normally dysfunctional family, how this individual goes thru life with the constant reminder of alcohol as something socially accepted and handy.
How much of an impact will be reflected on a child by having or not having an alcoholic parent on the later consumption or abuse of this substance. Did he/she was born with this tendency or will the social factors decide whether this child will become or not an alcoholic?
The reflection lead me to find that since 1987 ongoing research and medical studies, mixed within theories, contradictions and skeptics had been conducted to discover if an alcoholism gene actually exists and therefore this is the cause of this serious disease.
Just imagine how exerting this journey has been for the scientists given that even the notion of alcoholism as a disease has been a constant struggle for the general public to regard as such.
Why would it be that we have such a hard time understanding the struggle of an alcoholic, why we rejected them and outcast them, and make their path to recovery even more painful. May it be because we ourselves fear that what we had so much celebrated as inoffensive is indeed a great cause of grievance and we refuse to change our ways as a society?
There are courtiers in Europe such as Austria who had banned completely the advertisement of any kind of alcoholic beverages, well that's a start, I mean why to keep profiting with something that only damages our health and that is so hard to measure the consumption by an extended percentage of the human population.
But beyond this, scientists continued their research so Kenneth Blum, a pharmacologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center, in San Antonio, and Ernest Noble, a psychiatrist and biochemist at the UCLA Alcohol Research Center and a former director of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism published their study where they linked a specific gene as the cause of alcoholism.
This derived into many other medical studies, some linked alcoholism with a deficiency of dopamine, some others to the resistance of alcoholics to the effect of alcohol so they continue to drink without acknowledging the effect, then been driven to the worsen of their condition.
Some others linked this to genes that affect neurological functions, leading to people to bi polar disorder and schizophrenia having alcoholism as one of the traits of their condition.
Different chemicals such as tetrahydroisoquinolines (TIQs) which create the intense craving for alcohol had been linked to alcoholism too.
All this studies had been conducted with alcoholics and their children, some had been found to be positive and others inconclusive.
The fact is that even today after so many years of research, still remains a certain doubt in many health professionals, if alcoholism is exclusively related to a specific gene or a group of genes or if it in different cases the result of a personality disorder caused by a neurotransmitters unbalance.
As we know science in any case is a matter of constant discovery and development, so as a society we can only take in consideration all this factors and understand that yes there is a gene factor or a neurological factor, but we must not get trapped by this findings, anyway we have a choice in life as a society and as individuals.
We can improve and avoid these conditions, by raising our children differently not making something normal and accepted to consume alcohol and by creating the conscience of a healthy life style in them and in ourselves to live a better life and educating by example. Also demanding to our authorities to be more careful in the merchandising and marketing of alcohol.
And help each other in our community and family supporting the people who suffer this disease, and understanding this is something that can be treated and this person life can improve, let's not reject, let's help each other, maybe they have the alcoholism gene, who knows.
And also if you grew up with someone with this problem, try to seek professional help as soon as you find yourself not being able to control your alcohol intake and to avoid further complications. Or if you are already an alcoholic and have a family background, now you know that this might be genetically related, don't hesitate to seek professional help because this condition can be treated successfully.