by Marc Alan Schuckit

About the author: Marc Alan Schuckit is a psychiatrist and addiction specialist who teaches at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and he is the author of Educating Yourself About Alcohol and Drugs: A People’s Primer, from which the following viewpoint was excerpted.

It seems obvious that not everyone carries the same level of vulnerability to developing severe, repetitive problems once substance use has begun. This statement is really no different from what one would expect for most medical disorders, because different people appear to carry higher or lower levels of vulnerability toward heart attacks, cancer, obesity, and so on. Some people believe that different levels of vulnerability to developing alcohol or drug dependence are caused, at least in part, by biological differences that exist between people.

Some Genetic Factors Appear to Be Important