Addiction is a very serious condition that affects about ten percent of the population. It affects people of all ethnicities, and all socioeconomic backgrounds. The consequences of addiction are diverse; it affects both physical and mental health and economic, social, and emotional well being. Our understanding of the workings of addiction has grown tremendously in recent years, as more and more research on addiction has been done.
Research has shown that genetic predisposition to addiction, along with poor coping skills, are the two factors that determine whether an individual will struggle with addiction. Studies that were conducted by observing twins, both identical and non-identical, concluded that 50-60 percent of addiction is caused by genetic factors. Also, studies have shown that children of addicts are eight times more likely to become addicts themselves than are children whose parents are not addicts.
If you are learning about your family health history, you may find that no one really wants to talk about addiction if there are addicts in the family. Sometimes, other family members will try to minimize or explain away the behavior of other family members in order to avoid saying that the person is an addict. They say things like “He had a really hard time when his wife left and it made him drink a little too much”, when you know that his wife left him twenty years ago and he still drinks a little more than a little too much, and much too often.
While it can seem a little overwhelming to hear that fifty percent of addiction is caused by genetic factors, it is important to understand that the other fifty percent of addiction is caused by poor coping skills. Coping skills are something that can be learned, something that the individual with a genetic predisposition can exert some control over in order to avoid or overcome addiction. In other words, addiction in your genes is not a sentence to a life of addiction. You have the power to avoid or overcome addiction by learning to make good choices. It is not always easy to develop good coping skills and to implement them in your everyday life, but if you can you will enjoy the freedom that comes with being free from addiction. If addiction runs in your family and you are able to defeat or avoid it by developing good coping skills, make sure that you address the subject of addiction with your children when they are of an appropriate age and teach them the coping skills that have served you well. By teaching your children coping skills, you can greatly decrease the likelihood that they will struggle with addiction like some of their ancestors did.
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