Genetics of Alcohol Drinking

Alcohol addiction is a good example of the complex interplay between genes and environment (if alcohol didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have alcoholics). A recent study of mice has found 3,800 unique genes that vary between high and low amounts of voluntary alcohol consumption. Sorting this large number of genes into functional groups implicated:

• Mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling
• Transcription regulation pathways

Susan Bergeson, an assistant professor of neurobiology at The University of Texas at Austin:

What our results do is essentially generate candidate genes to be tested. Many of the genes we identified have never previously been implicated in alcohol drinking, including several whose function remains completely unknown.

But let’s bring it away from mice to the very heart of humans. Mark at A Dozen Steps says this about his alcohol addiction:

It seemed as if my problems had no solutions. The depth of my problems had become hopeless. There was one thing which made them go away. “A” drink, which directly followed that constant, “wonderful” decision. The same decision I had made thousands of times when my problems overwhelmed me. **** It!

It still comes down to a decision. That’s not to say I don’t believe studies like this aren’t useful. If we can identify genes involved in increasing a person’s susceptibility to addiction, we should find a way to manipulate the genes and dampen their effect. Just don’t use genes as an excuse for a disease that is partly determined by genetics and partly by behavior.

EurekAlert, April 18, 2006