Alcoholism as a Disease points to the large amounts of evidence which contradicts the idea of alcoholism as a unitary phenomenon, ie a disease
In the studies of Donald Goodwin.
Goodwin showed that children who had an alcoholic biological parent (‘alcoholic’ defined as someone who had undergone at least one hospitalisation for the disease) were 3.6 times more likely to become alcoholic than children who did not. (The proportions were about the same whether or not the adopting parents were alcoholic.) About 18 per cent of the children with alcoholic parents developed the condition, compared with 5 per cent of the others.
It’s an extraordinary result, which offers strong evidence for some genetic transmission of alcoholism – but Fingarette points out that it still leaves 82 per cent of children with alcoholic parents to grow up without the ‘disease’.
‘Either the relevant genes are usually not transmitted or the genes are transmitted but are usually outweighed by other factors.’
It’s also the case that by far the larger number of alcoholics have parents who are not themselves alcoholic: so all one can conclude, with Fingarette, is that ‘any genetic factor must be but one possible factor among others and that this genetic factor makes a difference in only a minority of cases.’
[*] Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease by Herbert Fingarette (University of California Press, 166 pp., £5, 1989, 0 520 06754).
In the studies of Donald Goodwin.
Goodwin showed that children who had an alcoholic biological parent (‘alcoholic’ defined as someone who had undergone at least one hospitalisation for the disease) were 3.6 times more likely to become alcoholic than children who did not. (The proportions were about the same whether or not the adopting parents were alcoholic.) About 18 per cent of the children with alcoholic parents developed the condition, compared with 5 per cent of the others.
It’s an extraordinary result, which offers strong evidence for some genetic transmission of alcoholism – but Fingarette points out that it still leaves 82 per cent of children with alcoholic parents to grow up without the ‘disease’.
‘Either the relevant genes are usually not transmitted or the genes are transmitted but are usually outweighed by other factors.’
It’s also the case that by far the larger number of alcoholics have parents who are not themselves alcoholic: so all one can conclude, with Fingarette, is that ‘any genetic factor must be but one possible factor among others and that this genetic factor makes a difference in only a minority of cases.’
[*] Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease by Herbert Fingarette (University of California Press, 166 pp., £5, 1989, 0 520 06754).
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