People turn to alcohol and drugs for many different reasons. Some want to experience the high that these substances deliver, while others consume to escape uncomfortable emotions or situations.
Children who grow up with alcoholic or drug addicted parents experience a reality far removed from the ‘Brady Bunch,’ white-picket fence ideal. Turbulent, stressful, volatile, unpredictable, these are just a sampling of the adjectives that describe the culture and atmosphere in a home torn asunder by the physical and emotional ravages of substance abuse.
More studies are showing that exposure to cocaine during adolescence causes the brain to naturally defend itself and reduce the drug’s negative effects. Recent Yale studies showed that genetics might play a bigger role in how the body regulates its response to cocaine, according to an online news article. Using test mice, the researchers found [...]
Growing up together in the same household, siblings are often privy to inside information about one another. A new brain imaging study now shows that one sibling’s brain may hold valuable clues about another sibling’s behavior. Your brother or sister’s lips may be sealed, but their brain has much to tell.
Families inherit hundreds of characteristics through the generations, and alcoholism is among the most deadly of those traits and genetic tendencies. Around 10 percent of people in the U.S. are believed to suffer from alcoholism over the course of their lifetime, and thousands will die – even though alcoholism itself is not often listed as [...]
I inherited this from my family. I was born to be a junkie like my old man and his father before him.
Two new studies found differences in the way females and males use drugs.
There are a number of things that genetics can be used to determine, including eye color, hair color, health and even your sensitivity to the drinking habits of others. According to a recent Science Daily release, genetics can play a role in determining the extent to which an individual is influenced by social drinking cues.
The way you make choices about your alcohol consumption and your decisions whether to use marijuana may only be your choices to a degree. Research has shown that heritable factors are a big part of dependency on alcohol and cannabis, which can influence many other areas of life. However, there has been a lack of [...]
While genetics continues to be a key focus into why certain people develop alcoholism while others do not, a new study examines the reality that genes play in a person’s risk for alcoholism. This research highlights genetic pathways and those genes associated with levels of alcohol consumption but not with alcohol dependence in rats and [...]