Originally Posted by hungarianhotdog

Hey.

The existence of an alcoholism gene has been the subject of much debate. You can say that the child of an alcoholic parent is 4 times more likely to become alcohol dependent but environmental factors must play a role also.

Imagine if you lived in an alcoholic home and all you saw was people using alcohol to cope with life....it is only natural that you would then go on to copy that behavior and perhaps become alcoholic yourself regardless of any so-called genetic factor.