Home > Health & Fitness > Substance Abuse & Addiction > Substance Abuse
Is drug abuse genetic?
Results so far:
| Yes | 39% | 237 votes | Total: 612 votes | |
| No | 61% | 375 votes |
Yes
by Dawn Hawkins
Created on: July 31, 2008 Last Updated: November 14, 2008
There are many types of drug abuse including such things as cocaine, heroin, crack and methamphetamines to name just a few. Every day, people from all walks of life struggle to stay away from their addictive habits. There is one question that you have to ponder with drug abuse. Is drug abuse genetic?
To find out more about this issue I visited the National Institute on Drug Abuse to see what the consensus is regarding the genetic link to drug abuse. Scientists do believe that the two are definitely connected. They just aren't sure how closely they are connected. One scientist believes that he may have pin pointed the defective gene that causes addiction in some people.
It must be understood that it isn't just the genetics that scientists believe causes this problem. They believe that it is a mixture of both environment and the gene pool. I must agree that genetics plays some role in abuse. That is the only thing that explains why alcoholism and drug abuse run rampant on both sides of my family. Of course, the environmental issues are also clearly written across my family tree. That doesn't mean that everyone in the family has addiction problems. It just makes us more likely to become addicted to something given half the chance.
Personally, I abhor drug use of any kind. I made a clear choice not to become addicted to drugs at a very early age. However, that doesn't mean that it couldn't happen to me. It just means I didn't allow it to happen. That adds an entirely different perspective on the drug abuse atmosphere. If I say I can control it, and I do, then how can it be genetics? It's plain and simple really. If I allowed myself to do the drugs, I probably would become addicted. It is only because I recognize in other family members their addictions and knowing how easily I have gotten addicted to other things that I can stay away from the drug addiction.
Here is an example:
If I go to a casino and put a quarter in one of the machines, it doesn't matter if I win or lose, I have an overwhelming urge to continue playing until I have nothing left. Even after that point, I still want to play and think of ways that I can get one more quarter. After all, that next quarter is the one that will be the big winner.
That's how it is with drug addiction. You get one small high and then you can't get rid of the urge to do it just one more time. The only difference between the sober me and my not so sober brother is that I said no. At some point in my life I made the decision not to do it. It doesn't mean that if I decided I wanted a drink one day that I wouldn't get addicted to it. It just means that I didn't want to be out of control of my mind that often.
Fraternal twins and identical twins were tested by scientists and the discovery was that the identical twins answered the questions in much the same way as compared to the fraternal twins. Identical twins share the exact genes as compared to fraternal twins who share about half the same genes. Since the identical answers were about the same, this would suggest that the genes have a great deal to do with drug addiction.
It is believed that if the genes that cause drug addiction can be found, we will then be able to find a new and better way to treat drug addiction. It is of personal interest to me that they find the genes and find a way to target them and treat them. I have grandchildren now and would like to see them able to live a normal life without the fear of getting addicted to drugs or alcohol. Wouldn't that make it such a wonderful world?
Learn more about this author, Dawn Hawkins.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
No
by Peta Ealing Cameron
Created on: August 06, 2008 Last Updated: November 16, 2009
The DNA of a human is composed of many different links within family gene pooling, not just from two particular people we call our parents. You may have a strain within your genetic coding structure that manifested through from grandparents, aunts, or uncles.
How, for example do people that are born of adopted parents explain any predisposition to drug abuse if they do not know there parentage and true bloodlines.
More often than not, you may find, circumstances relating to any high degree of sensitivity emotionally, we are more often than not finding a person much more likely to be predisposed to genetic pooling of sensitivity, thus making them a little more prone to abuse under circumstances of high stress.
The complete makeup of a person forming character traits from birth to old age is never reliant on just genetic coding. It would be like saying that if a baby was raised in the ghetto, or raised by a well to do family, with good education and plenty of money, that the circumstances around an addiction were different, all people are different and all circumstances are different. But the genetic makeup will still be prominent.
People from all lifestyles can be abusers. The only cases I have thought may have been passed down through family pools are cases involving sexual abuse. I have personal knowledge of one such case and the perpetrator was abused himself at the age of ten.
If more research was done into the subject of drug abuse, I am sure we would find that most drug abusers suffered other forms of abuse themselves as children.
If a person has for example a family history of medical illnesses, perhaps diabetes, heart disease or cancer, does this mean that all family members in the line will develop these health problems?
Perhaps some of them may. I would not necessarily assume that each of the bloodlines following would have a genetic code that renders them liable. Just as with drug or even alcohol abuse. Children learn what they live. If you watched a parent with a severe drug addiction, who allowed you to be placed in abusive situations, do you think you would necessarily want to try drugs?
It is not always as cut and dried as someone would think, most people have many abuse problems, which start any events leading to drug abuse. Drug abuse is not genetic, I think it is the characteristics and they way they are formed and used or abused throughout a child's up bringing which designates the outcome to drug abuse in a persons life.
A person may have a drug abusive parent and many brothers and sisters, and perhaps one out of three or four may succumb to the abuse of drugs. Does anyone ever consider this particular child may have reasons for taking the same path as that parent, and not just that this child got the ugly genes of abuse?
Does anyone consider the fact that this child may have been the one child who did not understand that parent well enough or get close enough to be able to reason things out? A child who lives in fear throughout their childhood could just be the one who ends up following the horrid path of drug abuse.
Learn more about this author, Peta Ealing Cameron.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Write and get published
Share with other writers
Polish your freelancing skills
Quality articles from proven freelancers
Exclusive rights, fast turnaround
Brand engagement, business blogging -- our writers do it all
INFORMATION
Copyright © 2002-2012 Helium, Inc. All rights reserved.
Helium.com: A Service of RR Donnelley