The Genetics and Disease of Addiction
How Common is Drug and Alcohol Addiction?
Approximately 10% of any population is addicted to drugs or alcohol. Addiction crosses all socio-economic boundaries. 10% of teachers, 10% of plumbers, and 10% of CEOs have an addiction.
- Addiction is more common than diabetes, which occurs in approximately 7% of the population.
- Approximately 60% of drinkers drink less than 4 drinks on the days when they drink.
- 20% of drinkers drink 5 or more less than 10% of the time.
- 9% of drinkers drink 5 or more at least half the time. (3)
The Genetics of Addiction
Anyone can become an addict. We all have the genetic predisposition for addiction because there is an evolutionary advantage to that. When an animal eats a certain food that it likes, there is an advantage to associating pleasure with that food so that the animal will look for that food in the future. In other words the potential for addiction is hardwired into our brain. Everyone has eaten too much of their favorite food even though they knew it wasn't good for them.
Although everyone has the potential for addiction, some people are more predisposed to addiction than others. Some people drink alcoholically from the beginning. Other people start out as a moderate drinker and then become alcoholics later on. How does that happen?
Repeatedly abusing drugs or alcohol permanently changes your brain chemistry and increases the way you respond to drugs and alcohol. If you start out with a low genetic predisposition for addiction, but you have poor coping skills that make you repeatedly escape through drugs or alcohol, then you can permanently rewire your brain and still end up with an addiction. Each time you drink heavily, you increase the buzz that you get from alcohol, which increases your chances of becoming an alcoholic.
Approximately 50% of addiction is caused by your genes and 50% by poor coping skills. This has been confirmed by numerous studies. One study looked at 861 identical twin pairs and 653 fraternal (non-identical) twin pairs. When one identical twin was addicted to alcohol, the other twin had a high probability of being addicted. But when one non-identical twin was addicted to alcohol, the other twin did not necessarily have an addiction. Based on the differences between the identical and non-identical twins, the study showed 50-60% of addiction is due to genetic factors.(4) Those numbers have been confirmed by other studies.(5)
The children of addicts are 8 times more likely to become addicted. One study looked at 231 people who were diagnosed with drug or alcohol addiction, and compared them to 61 people who did not have an addiction. Then it looked at the first-degree relatives (parents, siblings, or children) of those people. It discovered that if a parent has a drug or alcohol addiction, the child had an 8 times greater chance of developing an addiction.(6)
Your genes are not your destiny. The 50% of addiction that is caused by poor coping skills is where you can make a difference. Lots of people have come from addicted families but managed to overcome their family history and live happy lives. You can use this opportunity to change your life.
Why Addiction Is a Disease
Addiction is like most major diseases. Consider heart disease, the leading cause of death in the developed world. It's partly due to genes and partly due to bad diet, lack of exercise, and smoking. The same is true for other common diseases like adult-onset diabetes. Genes and life style play a role in many forms of cancers. But if your doctor said that you had diabetes or heart disease, you wouldn't think you were weak or a bad person. You would think, "What can I do to overcome this disease?" That is how you should approach addiction.
Addiction is not a weakness. The fact that addiction crosses all socio-economic boundaries confirms that addiction is a disease. People who don't know about addiction will tell you that you just need to be stronger to control your use. But if that was true then only unsuccessful people or unmotivated people would have an addiction, and yet 10% of high-functioning executives have an addiction.
If you think of addiction as a weakness, you'll paint yourself into a corner that you can't get out of. You'll focus on being stronger and trying to control your use, instead of treating addiction like a disease and focusing on stopping your use.
What Is Your Family History?
Most people don't know their family history of addiction very well. Addiction is not the sort of thing that most families talk about. Not too long ago you could have a raging alcoholic in your family and nobody would talk about it. Or they would make some quaint remark like, "Oh he drinks a little too much." There was so little people could do about addiction before that there was no point in talking about it.
But now that you can do something about addiction, a family history is worth talking about. Once you stop using and tell your family that you're in recovery, that's often when they will tell you about the family secrets. That's when family members will sometimes come out of the closet and tell you their stories.
Let your coping skills be the legacy you pass on to your children. Don't let your genes be the only legacy you pass on to your children. Your children are more likely to have an addiction because of your addiction. But their genes don't have to be their destiny. You can help your children lead happy lives by teaching them healthy coping skills – by being an example with your recovery.
Cross Addiction
A family history of addiction increases your chances of becoming addicted to any drug. If at least one of your family members is addicted to alcohol that increases your chances of developing an addiction to any other drug. Cross addiction occurs because all addictions work in the same part of the brain. If your brain is wired so that you're predisposed to one addiction, then you're predisposed to all addictions.
This is especially important for women who may come from alcoholic families, but who often develop addictions that go undetected, like addictions to tranquilizers, pain relievers, or eating disorders.
Cross addiction also means that one addiction can lead to other addictions, and that one drug can make you relapse on another drug. Suppose you're addicted to cocaine. If you want to stop using cocaine then you have to stop using all addictive drugs including alcohol and marijuana. You may never have had a problem with either of them, but if you continue to use them, even casually, they'll eventually lead you back to your drug of choice. Recovery requires total abstinence.
How does cross addiction cause relapse:
- All addictions work in the same part of the brain. Addiction is addiction is addiction. Therefore one drug can lead you back to any other drug.
- Even moderate drinking or smoking marijuana lowers your inhibitions, which makes it harder for you to make the right choices.
- If you stop using your drug of choice but continue to use alcohol or marijuana, you're saying that you don't want to learn new coping skills and that you don't want to change your life. You're saying that you want to continue to rely on drugs or alcohol to relax, escape, and reward yourself. But if you don't learn those new skills, then you won't have changed, and your addiction will catch up with you all over again.
The Consequences of Addiction
People only stop using when they've suffered enough negative consequences. When you've suffered enough pain and enough regret you'll be ready to stop. After all why stop before that? Addiction feels good.
You're ready to stop your addiction when the two competing qualities of addiction collide. On the one hand, addiction feels good which makes you want to use more. On the other hand, addiction feels so good that you're willing to sacrifice part of your life to have more, and you're willing to experience pain in order to continue using. After a while something has got to give.
The purpose of websites like this is to show you the potential negative consequences of addiction so that you're ready to quit before you've lost everything. You don't have to hit rock bottom. You can imagine what it would be like to hit rock bottom. And that can be enough to motivate you.
The most important consequences of addiction are social, emotional, and psychological. People usually think of the physical and economic consequences of addiction. "I don't have a serious addiction because my health is fine, and I haven't lost my job." But your body usually repairs itself quickly. The health consequences of addiction are often the least important.
As far as work is concerned that's usually the last thing to suffer. You need your work to pay your bills, so that you can continue to use. When your work begins to suffer, you've slipped from being a functioning addict to a non-functioning addict.
The damage addiction does to your relationships and self-esteem takes longer to repair. You've hurt friends and family. You've disappointed yourself. You've traded important things in your life so that you could make more time to use. You've lived a double life. You've seen the hurt in your family's eyes, and the disappointment in your children's faces.
The Cost of Addiction
When you look at the dollars and cents cost of addiction, the figures are mind boggling.
At least twice as many people die from alcoholism in the US every year as die from motor vehicle accidents.(7)
Alcohol intoxication is associated with 40-50% of traffic fatalities, 25-35% of nonfatal motor vehicle injuries, and 64% of fires. Alcohol is present in nearly 50% of homicides, either in the victim or the perpetrator.(8)
Alcohol intoxication is involved in 31% of fatal injuries, and 23% of completed suicides.(9)
One study found that 86 % of homicide offenders, 37 % of assault offenders, and 57 % of men and 27 % of women involved in marital violence were drinking at the time of their offense.(10)
Created: March 11, 2007, Last Modified: February 15, 2008