As my friend Kris regaled me with stories of her extended family, I commented, “Wow, a lot of people in your family are alcoholics.” She said, “Yes. We have the addiction gene. That’s why I’ve never had anything to drink.”
I didn’t know there was an addiction gene, but since alcoholism seems to run in families that made sense.
As I did some research, I found that several genes are implicated in alcoholism, otherwise known as alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence. Two alcohol metabolism genes, ADH1B and ALDH2, have the strongest known affects on risk for alcoholism.