Causes of Alcoholism

What are the causes of alcoholism?

There are many theories about alcoholism and its causes. Some of the common suggested causes that show up frequently in the literature include:

• Genetics or heredity
• Poverty
• Childhood abuse
• Depression
• Allergies
• Availability of cheap alcohol
• Growing up in an environment of heavy drinking
• Peer and cultural influence
• Being unemployed or having irregular work hours
• Personality traits
• Psychological problems

Some theorists believe that a few of the items on this list are not really causes of alcoholism but simply factors that are often associated with alcoholism. For example having alcoholic parents or being depressed. Not all children with alcoholic parents become alcoholic, though the likelihood is higher. Depression is as often a result of alcoholism as it is a cause.

In practice, many alcoholics experience a combination of the factors that contribute to their drinking behavior. Even those factors that might seem to guarantee alcoholism, such as a genetic predilection towards excessive drinking, are not always guarantees that an individual will become alcoholic. Some will. Some won’t.

Like many of the other questions that I asked about my alcoholic, this one turned out to be unimportant. The causes of her drinking were beyond my power to judge. In addition, there was little I could have done to change any of them, even if I had known her particular causes.

In retrospect, I believe the time that I spent on this question was an attempt to prove to myself I wasn’t the cause of her drinking and trying to avoid dealing with her drinking behavior. If the cause of her drinking was something I couldn’t do anything about, then I couldn’t be expected to try and do anything about it. Right?

Wrong!

I couldn’t change the past or the underlying causes, whatever they might be. However, I certainly could change how I responded to her drinking. And it turns out that my behavior, although not a direct cause, definitely contributed to her drinking.

But it took me a while to figure that out.

And even longer to take the steps necessary to stop enabling <<>> her drinking.

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