I'm interested in understanding what alcoholism is.

1. When does the addiction begin? (childhood?)

answer: yes... (or at least i think it does)

2. What is usually the basis for alcohol addiction? (Depression? Low esteem? Abuse?)

answer: yes to all of the above...

3. Is it possible that alcoholism is genetic, as in is there a gene for the addiction?

answer: i think yes... as in predispositioned to a particular life style...

4. If it is genetic, then how can one break the addiction?

answer: by understanding the problem... the problem being within the alcoholic himself...

5. Is there damage control? For ex., can one consume foods and herbs that heal the liver while still drinking?

answer: yes... if the alcoholic has someone to administer the amount of alcohol he consumes... for if left on his own... the alcoholic has little or no control... as it is a progressive disease... it always gets worse... never better...

Thank you in advance for offering your thoughts on these questions.

you're welcome...
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now... it is my turn for a few questions...

1. why do you wish to know...???
2. do you think you might be an alcoholic...???
3. do you know someone that you think might be alcoholic and wish to help them...???

and i'll leave you with this... i am an alcoholic... and i still am asking myself some of the same questions you posed... however... to find the right answers one must pose the right questions... and to know how to pose the right questions... one must have some knowledge of the right answers... lol... ;-)

i know it sounds crazy doesn't it... but then again... most of us are... the problem is that most of us unwilling to admit it... or to face it... which by some might be termed as being a classic case of "denial"...

i have my own opinions/theories about alcoholism that stem mostly from what i have learned from studying the book of "Alcoholics Anonymous"... and i'll leave you with a link that will furnish you with an online copy to read... most of the answers you are looking for you should find within the first 164 pages...

http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org/?Media=PlayFlash

good luck...
and God bless...

Dro’s answers to all your questions are in my opinion, completely correct.

Let me just add this…

I tend to think of my alcoholism more in the realm of what it did for me, and what I got from it in return. For me, alcohol always worked. Even the last days of my drinking, it was doing what I wanted it to do. It changed the way I felt, and it did it fast. It always worked.

In the beginning, it made it easy for me to talk to girls, I went from this fumbling looser into this confident guy in no time at all. It made me funnier, more clever, and better looking. It took a bland world and turned it into a colorful one. Why in the world wouldn’t I go back to something that did all that for me? And I did.

As I got older, it still worked. It did all the above and it also replaced my growing restlessness and discomfort with a sense of well being. In no time I would go from angry and impatient into the world’s best friend. It fixed all the little rough spots in my life. And in order to feel comfortable I drank.

In the last years of my drinking career, I drank for oblivion. Alcohol did the one think I asked of it, it allow me to forget what was going on in my life. I would wake up and all the crap that was my life was like a great weight pulling me under, and a few drinks made all those feelings of dread just go away. Why wouldn’t I go to something that would let me forget all that? Of course I drank. Who wouldn’t?

But the dirty trick is that none of the troubles in my life went away. Alcohol just gave me momentary relief from them. And they grew and grew as I sat there in my drunken stupor.

I would come to and I couldn’t stand the way I felt. And I knew that my friend alcohol would sooth me into that old sweet blindness. What else could I do? The world had become an intolerable place to live undrunk. At some point in my drinking, I went from wanting to drink into having to drink.

But when I knew both that I had to drink just to preserve my sanity, and that my drinking was dragging my ass deeper into the insane hell that is active alcoholism, I was truly lost. At some point near the end, I lost all hope. I was beaten, and I knew it.

The one question you asked that caught my attention the most is your last one, “can one consume foods and herbs that heal the liver while still drinking?”

Can I still drink?

That is the question people who suspect they are loosing control over their drinking always ask. You do realize that people who aren’t fighting this question of control over their drinking never ask such a question? They don’t need to. They are effortlessly in control of their alcohol intake. They do it without thinking, without even trying.

Not us, we think about drinking from the moment we open our eyes in the morning, we obsess about it. It is the cure for all that ails us, and we know it. Eventually we come to know the true nature of the relationship, but by then it is too late for control.

Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. We have crossed that invisible line.

My advice to you is try pouring down a few shots of your favorite drink, and then try stopping abruptly, do it more than once.


If you find that while controlling your drinking, it ain’t much fun, and when it is fun, you aren’t controlling it at all, do yourself a favor, find the nearest AA meeting, and show up.

Richard