The Role Genetics Could Play in Addiction

With the influx of media coverage around alcohol usage and its health risks, I thought I would take a look at my addictions and the science behind them. My father was an alcoholic from his adolescence up until the time he was forty. I was twelve and my brother was ten when we had a family meeting. Our parents told us our father was an alcoholic and that he had lost his job as an analyst on Wall St. He’d started attending AA and he wanted me and my brother to go to Alateen meetings.

Before he got sober my father took me to bars on the weekends and ordered Shirley Temples for me. I have vague memories of sitting high up on barstools while groups of men laughed and talked about things I didn’t understand.

Before he got sober, our father took my brother and me to pool halls and taught us how to shoot pool. A tumbler of Johnnie Walker Red always rested on the edge of the table while he showed us how to break and position our fingers to support the cue as we tried to get the balls in the pockets. He bought me and my brother our own pool cues—the kind in two halves that we had to screw and unscrew—and carrying cases.

My first taste of liquor came at a Passover seder when I was nine or ten. My father allowed me to dip a finger in the wine glass and then lick my finger. Once or twice. I don’t recall if he allowed me to ever taste his scotch. I’m sure if he did, I didn’t like it.

A 1994 study found…