Predestined to Drink? The Genetics Debate | Born Alcoholic or Choices Made You One?

Is alcoholism a disease or a choice? We examine the nature of alcoholism and genetics to help you understand addiction. And why AA gets alcoholism wrong.
BOOKS FOR RECOVERY AND REINVENTION

THE SMALL BOOK: HOW I BEAT ALCOHOLISM AND WHY ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS DOESN'T WORK.

THE SHEPHERD AND THE RUNNINGWOLF: A PATH TO FORGIVENESS ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL

REINVENTION OF SELF: HOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND BEING FOREVER

John Barleycorn taken from Jack London's book John Barleycorn. First published 1913

This channel is opinion only not to be taken for medical advice

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Is someone an alcoholic simply because they were born with the alcoholic gene? An unwitting victim who was an alcoholic before he even took his first drink? Is it choice or is it genetics? Stay tuned and we'll see. One of my greatest contentions with the Alcoholics Anonymous philosophy would be the concept that alcoholics have a disease. That the reason they are alcoholics today wasn't because they kept putting the bottle to their mouths, but were unwilling victims who had no clue that their DNA contained the genetic code of a monster who was lying in wait for that first taste of the barley. The opening of the gate that allowed the demon to rush into the fortress, whose guards were unaware it was hidden outside of the castle at all. And I can't say I subscribe to this, and the topic seems to be a matter of great contention among those who do professionally study the subject. One camp resides at the AA mantra that genetic makeup is responsible for the addiction. They contend that the person was an alcoholic before they ever picked up the first drink. Hence, they were born with the disease. No different than someone who is a healthy, 21-year-old who is completely unaware that the cancer gene is embedded, waiting to make its debut in a few decades. And I can understand this point of view. As a former practitioner in the medical field, I've had thousands of patient history reviews which include past family history. People who suffer from depression usually had a parent with the same affliction. I imagine generationally, there were certain genetic code sequences that would have served as future predictors for these symptoms. And I imagine, whether looking at depression or alcoholism, it would take at least several generations of the affliction before that coding became embedded for a future descendant of that family tree. Then there's the other camp of thought, when talking about the origin of alcoholism, that states that the addiction is more socially learned. There's a great deal of rationale in this worldview as well. I once visited the house in which I grew up and had left decades prior, located in a small river town in rural Indiana. The owner actually knew my father quite well, although he hadn't been in contact with our family for decades. He stated I reminded him of my dad, not in appearances much, but in mannerisms, facial expressions, movements, and the like. This does make sense as we're all trainable creatures, and that training largely comes from our parents. Could it be possible that alcoholism was modeled into us? For most of us, former or current alcoholics, had one or two parents who were the same, just like the person whose parents suffered from depression was indoctrinated into that mental mindset. According to the owner of my former house, I had the mannerisms that match my father's. Does that depressive learn his mental state from which he was brought up? And does that follow for the future alcoholic as well? Alcoholics Anonymous will insist that their contention of alcoholism being a disease is the correct truth. And of course, this programs its members to believe they never had a choice in their alcoholism, that their code was programmed long before they were ever born. But the fact is that it is difficult to know for sure. Many of the young drink excessively in their youth, but most don't become alcoholics. Some become alcoholics even if they had no lineage of the addiction. It'd be relatively easier to take a group of known alcoholics, as they do, and trace the common culprit of why they developed the addiction. But to take all the populace of those who consumed heavily in earlier days and decipher who had what background and who developed the addiction and who didn't would be a much more arduous task. For instance, one could look at the soldier population. There's two types of soldiers, those who did one enlistment, known as a tour, and those who made the military a career. I was a one-tour soldier, and my only social associations were other soldiers in my unit, which is very common in the military. There wasn't anyone I knew who didn't drink excessively, and usually daily during this time. A different persona but similar scenario is the college student, living in the dorms. Drinking is rampant in college, but drinking can be rampant as well with some, especially with males outside of college. In the era of one's early 20s as well, there is a certain wildness of youth, which usually by axiom includes large amounts of alcohol. And this alcohol abuse will last for a few years. A few years may be plenty of time to become addicted to a substance just like smoking. If one smokes for a few years, usually the nicotine demon has got you. But then there's the inquiry. A great many who smoke for a few years end up smoking well into their lives, if not their entire lives. In contrast to the great many who abuse alcohol for a few years in their reckless youth, whether military or otherwise, but yet return to social drinking as they age. What causes, in a drinking populace of a few years, one group to become addicted and the other to return to only social drinking? The first knee-jerk answer would be, obviously, it is a genetic trap waiting to close on the future alcoholic who doesn't realize he just stepped into it with that first bottle to his lips. However, there are other factors with these genetically inclined future alcoholics. Most had traumatic childhoods. Many times those traumas are associated with the home. For if one or both parents are alcoholics, how swell do you think the home life was for these people? It isn't a matter of simply learning how to be an alcoholic from your mother or father. Alcoholics tend to be dysfunctional, and many times that dysfunctionality includes meanness and abuse toward the children. Adult life is affected by childhood trauma, whether one drinks or not. Many survivors of childhood trauma have self-esteem problems, lack of confidence, problems in relationship building, and depression as a result of their past. I can attest to this, I had a horrible high school and home life. The first time I really hit John Barley corn hard was at a high school graduation party. I had switched high schools at the end of my junior year, and due to an intense fear of social situations, by the time I reached the second school, I had been a recluse, existing in isolation my entire remaining time there. But I went to the party, which I handled this angst by drinking a great deal of vodka and beer, which one can imagine did not turn out well. But it did eliminate the anxiety for a time. In one of my writing works, I described the effect of my new compadre, John Barleycorn, as not only pushing away the anxiety, but giving me the sensation of feeling pretty fined at the event. Unfortunately, soon afterward I wasn't nearly as fine while retching on the lawn, followed by a severe hangover sickness that lasted for two days, after which I sworn a few generational graves that I would never touch it again, and I didn't for about two weeks until a get together with finally some new friends. This time I consumed beer only, but in enough quantity where yes I was hungover the next day, but not nearly with the extreme symptoms as the first time. But the social anxiety reduction effect was the same. Most adults who experience childhood dysfunctional surroundings do not understand that they remain to be affected in adulthood. It took myself until 40, the age when I ended the tie with John Barleycorn, until I finally put the pieces together. I realized that emotionally, the 15-year-old was still frozen in time. I read a great many books on the subject. It became very clear why the friendship with JB had developed in the first place. It was a numbing agent in my early 20s, and if you sip on that agent long enough, eventually physical addiction will become the next phase of the substance abuse. This is probably the largest difference between those who indulge in a few years recklessly and those who develop an addiction to alcohol. Neither group usually starts out drinking every single night unless you are on that intense military team. For most of youth, it is usually weekends where the greatest consumption occurs. But somewhere in the mid to later 20s, the two groups diverge. The young, reckless drinkers begin to taper their intake down after the military college, or just the closing of their early youth. They have careers they are focusing on, maybe married, and even with children by now, and they simply don't have the energy they did at 19. That fuel continues to lessen with age. So this group transforms into that social just a few drinks at Outings participants, with only the occasional drunk on special events like New Year's Eve. But the alcoholic group evolves into the exact opposite. The intake only begins to increase with age, energy level or not. The few nights a week with heavy consumption gradually becomes every night. But is this just the alcoholic gene finally kicking in? I'm pretty sure I could have quit alcohol completely after I left the military. As a matter of fact, I greatly cut down by my first year of college, but I was also contending with a past of childhood trauma and didn't even know it. Even as a then well-practiced martial artist and bodybuilder, I didn't have the mental confidence that I thought. Somewhere, underneath the guise of round kicks and bench pressing, I subconsciously, and many times even consciously knew that. And alcohol was the anesthetic that kept those thoughts buried at the bottom of the canyon. It may take longer to become addicted to alcohol than, say, cocaine or even smoking. In the early days of the youthful excessive drinking, one has time to get out and escape its grasp. I contend that it wasn't a physical craving by my later 20s that led to alcohol addiction, but an emotional one. But if you continue to use a substance to ease these emotional ills, eventually the physical addiction will finally take you. Once that happens, you're in the clutches of John Barleycorn, and the rest will be history, as the intake will only increase, as will the withdrawal symptoms if you quit. As said, there's a great debate whether genetics or social environment will lead one down the road to alcohol addiction. Many believe it's a combination of both, which makes the most sense. One is born with a genetic predisposition to the addiction. Alcoholic behavior is socially learned in a traumatic childhood, where later the toxic substance is also the reliever of pain. The childhood's never dealt with, so that reliever of pain is the only avenue of emotional escape. Then enough time passes until the body becomes physically addicted to the substance. An alcoholic is born. But here's my great contention with Alcoholics Anonymous. It doesn't matter the reason why you became addicted, and alcoholism isn't a disease. These statements, especially the second one, will cause AA to snarl, for it is heresy to their entire platform of the premise. First, alcoholism isn't a disease, it's an addiction. I will concede that there may be genetic factors that give predisposition to the addiction. Alcoholic gene I've read about. But the greatest factor that exists is the one of choice. The person born with the cancer gene doesn't have it. He can't just decide to quit cancer. The alcoholic can quit his addiction. The AA community would like to act like one was a total victim unaware that he was an addict. There is no one who drinks a 12-pack or a pint of gin every night and thinks this is normal. One may hide this fact for social repercussion reasons, but everyone who drinks this much every night knows this isn't on par. Unlike cancer, the cure is always there. And unlike chemotherapy, that method of cure will work 100% of the time. All you have to do is quit. And the why? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether it was socially learned, genetics, or both put together. Everyone has that choice whether they're going to become addicted to alcohol or not. If one has alcoholic parents, then it'd be wise just to avoid the substance altogether. But if one sees himself consuming more and more in his 20s, or using the substance to detour internal angst, then that's the time to veer off the road in which John Barleycorn travels. The idea that, I couldn't help it, it was in my genes, is nonsense. No one is oblivious when he is doing something to himself that is harmful. That denial river in Egypt, it's a dry bed. It's a big excuse to take the blame off oneself that the addiction resulted in something other than a bad choice in life. I will say that as someone who had alcoholism rampant in his family, had a terrible social environment at home and school in my formative years, became addicted to alcohol, was a raging alcoholic for 13 years, and quit it and proclaimed cure two years later. I probably have the, quote, alcoholic gene. It was all still my own doing and poor choice those many years ago. The philosophy of the alcoholic is born with the disease via this offshoot gene is destructive. AA claims that they promote taking responsibility, yet this gives a mental way of not doing so. It's also destructive for the person who will see himself as forever diseased, which is terrible for self-esteem recovery. We all did enough stupid, nonsensical, depraved things while under the tutelage of John Barleycorn, which we would all like to have removed from our memory. We don't need to add disease to our list of personal attributes, especially when one has left that life in the past. But whether genetics is a partial factor or not, the fact remains that if you're reading this, you have probably ceased the friendship with John Barleycorn. Focusing on the why isn't relevant after a few months clean. Your future sobriety doesn't depend on some DNA sequence, and you are not destined as a forever deficit person. Your master status is not alcoholic. Your future self is the best possible version of yourself, which you accomplish by reinventing the physical, emotional, career, and spiritual planes of your being. And an alcoholic gene doesn't impede you from advancing these planes, nor should it be thought about once you make the correct choice of leaving the alcohol addiction behind. And if you want some more reasons why AA is not a healthy way to advance to recovery, check out my playlist card at the end of the video. And check out my own guidebook on how to recreate your own life on all holistic planes. Reinvention of self, how to change your life and being forever. Link is on the video description as well as the channel page banner. And remember, you made the contract, so keep it. Be sober at sundown, and I will see you at the next sunrise.