After years of wondering why I could not drink the way other people seemed to, I eventually landed on an explanation that many of us have heard before.
Maybe I was just wired differently.
Society has a fairly straightforward way of explaining drinking behaviour. There are the people who can take alcohol or leave it, and there are the people who cannot. There are the “normal drinkers” and the “alcoholics.” The explanation often goes a step further: some people are said to carry a gene that makes them unable to control their drinking. If you have it, you’re destined to struggle. If you don’t, you’ll probably be fine. For a long time, this explanation brought me a strange kind of comfort. If my drinking was genetic, then at least there was a reason for it.
But the more I learned, the more I realized the story is not quite that simple.
Scientists have identified genetic factors that can influence a person’s relationship with alcohol. Some people may be more vulnerable to developing problematic drinking patterns than others. However, there is no single “alcoholism gene” that neatly separates people into those who will struggle and those who won’t.
Human behaviour is rarely that straightforward.
What researchers continue to find is that our environment, life experiences, relationships, beliefs, stress levels, and emotional coping mechanisms all play significant roles in shaping our behaviours around alcohol. This was an important realization for me. Because if drinking behaviour is influenced by more than genetics, then it becomes possible to ask a different question.
Not, “What’s wrong with me?”
But rather, “What is driving this behaviour?”
That question feels very different. One assumes a defect. The other invites curiosity.
Looking back, I can see that I have spent years trying to control my drinking without understanding what purpose it was serving in my life. I focused on the behaviour itself while ignoring everything underneath it.
I wanted to know why I couldn’t stop after two drinks. I wasn’t asking why I needed those drinks so badly in the first place. And perhaps that’s where many of us get stuck. We become consumed with managing the symptom while never examining the cause. The truth is that alcohol does something for us. Or we believe that it does. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t keep reaching for it.
The question is: what exactly is it doing?
That is the question that is ultimately changing my perspective, and my life.