This thread got me to wondering about something. I have a number of good friends who are not alcoholics. I do not believe any of them have lived through as much personal tragedy as any of the stories here on the board, including my own. In fact, my friends all wonder how I've managed to survive. People I know who do have alcohol problems in general seem to have more tragic history.

Could there really be a correlation, or is this just baseless speculation?

I think a lot of people start to drink and then the personal tragedy comes. It is not always the tragedy first and then the alcohol in my own opinion ...

Well, in my case there was enough tragedy in my childhood to last most people a lifetime. It was the death (murder) of my twin brother that caused me to pick up after nearly 20 years of abstinence. Yes - there's been more since then, but not primarily alcohol driven.

I definitely believe that there is a strong correlation between life's tragedies and drinking. Many people turn to the bottle as a refuge from tragedy. Some control it and others get to the point where they can't control it. That's where the role of genetics comes into play, IMO. If you have the genetic predisposition to get addicted and you are facing a lot of tragedy and you deal with it by drinking, the chances are pretty good that you become an alkie. However, if you have a lot of tragedy, reach for the booze and don't have the genetic predisposition to becoming an addict, you are probably OK, IMO.

This might be a whole separate post, but it would be VERY INTERESTING to do an unscientific test and take a poll in this group and find out how many people have alcoholics in their family. I got it from my mother's side. My mother's mother was a HFA who died at 75 after a life of drinking and smoking (lucky to last that long); my mother's sister slit her wrists and died while drunk; and my mother was fully on her way to becoming an alkie but was SAVED by a biological quirk: she gets migraine headaches when she drinks more than a couple. As a result, she has been prevented from ever drinking more than two drinks. (BTW, on a humorous political note, I saw my mother drink more than two drinks one time in my entire life. It was in 2004, the night W got re-elected and we were watching the election returns at her house. She had a third vodka/OJ, threw up in the kitchen sink and promptly went to bed.) Anyway, she cannot drink as much as she wants because of the migraines. She has told me repeatedly she'd be an alkie but/for migraine headaches. No alkies on my dad's side.

Lena said ....

"I suspect that triggers without craving present a choice whether to drink in response to them. To me, that is the difference between addiction and non-addiction -- Whether we are slaves to our triggers. "

I like that lena , it sounds great and happens to mean that at this time I am both addicted and not addicted depending on the moment and that tsm is pushing us along that continuum . Thankyou, a very nourishing insight .

and ... with reference to being "mad " ( slight exag ,ok ) but the process
of leaving addiction is a bit diorientating !