Alcoholism's genetic link

Two interweaving factors leading to alcoholism have been detected by scientists in Washington.

Personality and parental alcoholism have been observed to interact to influence an individual’s risk of becoming an alcoholic.

A personality trait called ‘novelty seeking’ and parental alcoholism are among the new findings that can increase the risk or protect against developing the addiction.

The researchers found that a high novelty seeking tendency is a strong risk factor for alcoholism among children of alcoholics (COAs).

Alternatively, low novelty seeking proved to protect against the risk of developing alcoholism among the COAs.

The authors also take note of ‘disinhibitory personality traits’ that refer to risk-taking, exploratory, thrill-seeking and sometimes impulsive personality characteristics.

They found that children, most notably boys, who display these traits have a high likelihood of becoming alcoholics as adults.

The findings also indicate that this risk is further enhanced if these children have an alcoholic parent.

"Novelty seeking is not in and of itself a dangerous thing," said Richard Grucza, an epidemiologist at Washington University School of Medicine.

"[Tour de France champion whose father was an alcoholic] Lance Armstrong is a good example of somebody with high novelty seeking - he was seriously injured in a bike accident in high school.

“Somebody more risk-averse or less enamoured of the thrill of speed probably would have focused on running or swimming after that.

“But obviously, he is someone who has channelled these tendencies in non-destructive ways,” Grucza observed.

Kevin Conway, associate director of the Division of Clinical Neuroscience and Behavioral Research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, added: "Although familial alcoholism has long been known to increase the risk of alcoholism in offspring, the risk is not 100 per cent.

"This indicates that family history by itself is only one of many variables in the 'equation' predicting alcoholism.

“Some variables increase the probability of alcoholism in offspring, such as exposure to heavy drinking, or antisocial behaviour in parents or offspring, whereas others decrease this risk, such as warm parent-child relationships and certain forms of the alcohol dehydrogenase gene.”

The team analysed data collected from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism of 1,111 adult siblings of patients seeking treatment for alcoholism.

The results refute the widely accepted claim that alcoholics suffer from an ‘addictive personality’.

"Some rethinking of the relation between personality and addiction may be in order," added Grucza.

"Rather than thinking about an 'addictive personality,' it is important to think about how personality might influence a person's response to other genetic and environmental risk factors.”

Results were published in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.