Drug Addiction News: Is a Person Predisposed to Drug Addiction by Genetic Factors or Environmental Factors?
Nature or nurture? This is a question that rings throughout the halls of academia and in clinics, hospitals and detox rehabs everywhere. It has long been known that children raised in families where drug abuse and addiction are present are statistically more likely to experience those same problems in their own lives.
So, is drug addiction carried genetically from parents to children and then on to the next generation through a drug addiction gene? Or is the addictive potential a result of learned behavior from environmental exposure to parents or siblings dealing with addictions? There is supporting evidence on both sides of the issue, and many researchers have developed very definite opinions and taken sides in the debate.
But, in a recent release of information from the Human Genome Project as reported on the PBS science website, NOVA On-line, it was reported that the total number of genes in human DNA is a paltry 30,000, barely twice the number in a common fruit fly! According to Craig Venter, president of Celera Genomics, one of the two teams that cracked the human genome,
‘We simply do not have enough genes for this idea of biological determinism to be right.”
In other words, addiction is not demanded by some predetermined pattern drawn in each and every cell of the body. And a child does not have alcoholism or any other complex tendencies hard-wired into his body and brain on a microscopic level.
This is good news and bad – bad because the long and worn excuse of addicted persons that their genes made drug abuse and addiction nearly inevitable will not quite wash anymore.
But really, this is very good news because it means our fates were always, truly, up to us. And there never were predetermined addictions; no sons or daughters for whom drug or alcohol abuse and dependence were inevitable.
More importantly, if drug use and abuse were always choices, then quitting is also a choice. And that is an encouraging thought for anyone fighting addiction. Even though help is required when the addiction is full blown, the decision to seek help is in the hands of the patient and always was…not predetermined by some genetic code.
While they say there may be other factors, as yet undiscovered, which might make a person predisposed to drug addiction, apparently an addict always did have a choice.
And that is the best news of all.
If you or someone you know is battling drug addiction, visit Drug Independence
Tony Bylsma CCDC, is a rehabilitation counselor and drug prevention speaker in Los Angeles, California
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