Alcohol Prohibition Not Helping Native Americans Deal With Harms of Alcohol

[jwirr]

13. Alcoholism is not genetic. It is very much a learned behavior and yes it does run in families. Let

me tell you about the family I am from. They live in a village that has a lot of open alcoholism. The children live daily with the role models they see drinking openly. Sometimes it is the whole damn village at the party. And it is not unusual for a "kindly" uncle to share his drink with some child he loves. The youngest in my family was 5 years old when his uncle got him drunk. At the time of his death he was still drinking with that "kindly" old uncle. And he was sharing his drinks with his nephew. And this has been going on since the fur trading days when tribes were paid in alcohol for their pelts.

If there is a genetic component it is that inability to tolerate alcohol. But that to can be explained without genetics. My parents adopted the German ancestory model of drinking - casual and stop before you are drunk - I grew up that way. But others in my family had not learned to temper their behavior in this way and the goal of drinking for them was to get drunk - the drunker the better and as often as possible. IMO no one can tolerate that type of drinking without dire side effects such as addiction.