I’m curious, no one in my family, in living memory, has been what I would classify as alcoholic. However, every male in my family who has done pot has become addicted.
I was wondering, for those of you out there who are/were addicted to a chemical, have any of your relitives had problems with the same chemical?
My father was a book addict. Simply inhaled them. My older brother and I share the same addiction, perhaps to a lesser degree.
I’ll take the crap/flames for this one. “Addiction” is a joke. Addiction == habit. Ask any smoker. It’s not the nicotine/THC, but the act of smoking that gets you. Alcoholics enjoy drinking. Give an “alcoholic” a glass of water, a pop/soda, or kool-aid, and watch. No matter the liquid, they’ll drink it in a couple gulps. Someone is addicted to illicit drugs, they’ll do whatever is on hand, except those they deem dangerous.
People are coffee addicts, sugar addicts, sex addicts, addict ad nauseum. It has nothing to do with genes, it’s all in your way of looking at things.
An example I like: An old boss of mine went through all sorts of anti-smoking programs, and constantly complained about how addicted he was. I got tired of listening to him about it (I smoke myself). One day I asked him if he truly hated it, why did he continue to buy them?
After all, if you don’t make cigarettes (and other stuff) available, you’ll kick the habit, eventually. I think that embarrassed him (this was at lunchtime, and almost everybody we worked with heard me, and laughed.) It took him a couple more weeks, and that was it. Now, unfortunately, he’s that annoying anti-smoker. 
I know, some people have bad physical effects to quitting various things, but I still don’t quite beleive that most of it isn’t mental. Sure, cleansing your system is bound to have effects, especially if your body almost runs on the drug, but some people suffer the same effects if they’re withheld from other habits, like a sexual “addiction.”
Yes, you will. The vast preponderance of scientific evidence is against you.
Neuroscience behind drug addiction
Got any reputable cites for your assertion? This is GQ in the SD you know!
Sorry, here’s the link I meant to post. The other’s a clearing-house list of addiction articles.
The Neuroscience of addiction Warning: .pdf file
My ex-husband is an alcoholic and now my 21 year old daughter is showing signs that she is too. She is still in the denial stage. So, yes I believe there is a hereditary link to addiction.
Alcoholic here. Both parents, one brother (out of three siblings) and maternal grandfather also alcoholics.
How far does the addiction thing go? I can see that the withdrawal from a drug can cause the body to crave it, and I can also see that the withdrawal could be dangerous. What I do not see is how someone who has actually decided to quit <blank> drug could be compelled by this discomfort to go out and get it. The drug will not take control of the user’s mind and send him out to the mall, backstreet, or whatever and buy the substance without his/her intervention.
What I think that st1d is getting at is that addiction is a habit with stiffer consequences. If you have a habit of say, flipping the lights off whenever you leave a room, there will be a certain amount of discomfort in breaking the habit. The difference with drugs is that there may be pain, difficulty in concentration, etc. If someone goes to the hospital and says “I don’t have a lot of money, but I am trying to break my <blank> habit; what can you do for me?” they would have no trouble.
Mainly what I am saying is that people have to willpower to starve themselves to death even if there is food available. Why can’t people break a habit where the consequences actually lessen as they go on?
phage, while what you say may be ‘logical’, it is belied by the actions of millions of addicts and alcoholics.
A ‘habit’ is a commonly used neural pathway, so that future uses of this pathway are quick and easy. An addiction causes significant structural change in various parts of the brain. This has been demonstrated on PET scans and other neurologic imaging modalities. NOT the same thing as a habit. Check my links.
Yes. There is a strong heredity propensity to become addicted/attached/enslaved etc. etc. by certain substances and not others if they are available in a certain context. Many people on my mother’s side of the family have a strong tendency to be alcoholic. My mother and her brother were both alcoholics. It hit my younger brother and older sister and spared my younger sister and myself. My brother got over it, my older sister still has problems.
my mom read somewhere the probability of becoming an alcoholic if your parents, grandparents, or both were alcoholics. i’m assuming alcoholism can be genetic and is recessive,
being raised christian, i was always told “the sins of the fathers [or mothers] rest upon the children to the third and fourth generation.” this can apply to just about any habitual problem. my mom was either a 2nd or 3rd generation alcoholic, so there’s a possibility i might have that problem too. but you can’t become an alcoholic if you don’t drink.
Sorry gypsymoth3 I know alcoholics who have been sober for 15 years. The currently don’t drink but they are still alcoholics.
You will never **know ** if you are an alcoholic, if you never take that first drink.