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5 Steps to Addiction - Step #1 Biology
Alcoholism and addiction are centered in the brain. There are two biological risk factors for alcoholism: family history and high tolerance.
It is common for people to believe that alcoholism and addiction run in families because of the effect of living in that environment. However, adoption research conducted in the United States, Sweden, and Denmark explains how alcoholism runs in families because of increased biological risk. Additional studies have shown that people who have a birth parent with alcoholism are four times more likely to develop a drug problem when they are adults - including an increased genetic risk for serious problems related to marijuana, stimulants such as cocaine, opiates such as morphine, and sedatives such as Valium. Essentially, the more blood relatives an individual has with alcoholism, and the closer they are in relation within the blood line, the greater the risk for alcoholism and addiction.
People with a high tolerance are not protected from alcohol problems. In fact, individuals with a high tolerance are likely to have an increased risk for alcoholism. Furthermore, people with a high tolerance are less sensitive to the effects of alcohol and cannot accurately detect when impairment begins. Thus, people with a high tolerance have moved closer to their trigger level.
Biology also sets an individual’s trigger level. Some people have a standard trigger level, while other people may have a lower trigger level because of increased biological risk. Trigger level means the level of risk or the point at which a health problem, alcoholism or addiction, will develop. This means individuals with an increased risk, or lower trigger level require less alcohol or drugs to trigger an addiction or not. Research tells us that our trigger level for developing alcoholism is hereditary, but is not completely under genetic control.
