Should You Be A Teetotaler If One Of Your Close Relatives Is An Alcoholic?

Humans have been using and abusing alcohol for millennia, but research that has emerged in recent decades has taught us much more about how addiction actually works. We know, now, that a person's genetic background has a large impact on their risk of becoming an alcoholic. If alcohol runs in your family, that raises some tough questions. Should you ever drink, at all, if you have alcoholics in your family? And if you have children, how can you talk to them about their own risk of becoming addicted?

All in the family: Will you become an alcoholic if you have relatives with alcohol use disorder?

Not necessarily, but your risk is certainly higher. 

The fact that alcoholism and other addictions tend to "run in families" is well-known. If you happen to be adopted, you may wonder if this risk is caused by genetic or environmental factors — like growing up in a violent home where alcohol is always in play. Studies have shown that around 18 percent of the biological sons of alcoholic birth fathers developed alcohol use disorders even when they were adopted, compared to only five percent of other adoptees. A large portion of the risk of developing alcoholism is genetic, then, and you still have an increased risk if you're adopted. 

While your risk of alcohol abuse is much higher if you have an immediate relative who is addicted to alcohol, even people with second- and third-degree relatives struggling with addiction fall into at-risk categories. 

There's more to your risk of developing an alcohol use disorder than genetics alone, however. You're more likely to become addicted to alcohol if:

• Your peers drink and promote drinking
• You tend to be impulsive and are vulnerable to peer pressure
• You start drinking alcohol at a young age
• You have low self-esteem and lack a sense of belonging
• Alcohol is readily available in your community
• You have experienced difficult events in childhood
• You come from a low socioeconomic status background

Factors that can make you swing the other way, protecting you against later alcohol abuse, include:

• Being educated about the risks of drinking
• Having a negative opinion of alcohol and substance abuse
• Having positive social relationships in your life and being active in the community
• Having the opportunity to engage in positive activities (such as sport) during childhood and adolescence
• Having self-confidence

Deciding whether to drink if alcoholism runs in your family

If you do decide to drink, you'll minimize your risk of addiction by:

• Delaying alcohol consumption until you are older — at least of legal drinking age. People who start drinking at a young age have a higher risk of becoming addicted.
• Always sticking to safe drinking guidelines. That means no more than one standard drink a day for women, and no more than two a day for men. Men who routinely have more than 15 standard drinks a week and women who drink more than eight over the course of seven days are defined as heavy drinkers, which is already wading into problem territory. Binge drinking — more than four drinks in a single sitting for women, and more than five for men — also falls into the category of problem drinking. 
• Stopping drinking altogether as soon as you notice that you're having trouble limiting yourself, or you find you want to drink every day. 

People who realize they have some of the signs of problem drinking — such as no longer achieving the same effect from the same amount, craving alcohol, needing to drink to feel normal, drinking as a way to numb themselves, missing out on important activity because of their drinking, and so on — should ideally seek professional help right away. Those with a family history of alcoholism should be especially vigilant if they do drink at all.

Talking to children about a family history of alcoholism

Perhaps you are an alcoholic in remission yourself. Maybe your child's other parent has a drinking problem, or you have a wider family history of alcohol or other substance abuse. Perhaps your adopted child has a family history of substance abuse, while your own biological family doesn't. 

Here are some tips:

• Start talking about addiction with your child at a young age, before they are at risk of being exposed to alcohol or other substances themselves. 
• Present the facts — explain that relatives of addicts have a higher risk of becoming addicts themselves. 
• Share personal stories — your own, or relatives' — to make the risks more concrete, rather than abstract, in the child's mind. 
• Talk about peer pressure and how to resist it. 
• This one really goes without saying, but here goes anyway — have a positive, loving, honest, relationship with your child and engage in family activities together. A carefree and secure childhood is one of the protective factors against addiction.