We are talking about alcohol abuse when a person turns an occasional drink into a habit, disregarding the frequency and the quantity. This seriously damages professional life and relationships or provokes problems with the law. Alcohol abuse is the first step to addiction. It is different for different persons, because every organism has its own ways to assimilate and deal with alcohol. The same quantity that does nothing to a person may represent abuse for another - 30% of the US adults face this problem.

The absence of self-control, the necessity to drink, addiction at physical level and development of a certain tolerance, are symptoms that characterize alcoholism. The alcohol dependence symptom has nothing to do with the kind of drinks, or to the period of constantly drinking, not even to the quantity, but it depends on a necessity that gets out of control.

Some people may have genetic inheritance that makes them predisposed to alcohol addiction. Vulnerability can be given by DNA, and there are tests to discover whether a person has in his gene or there are different causes. Screening for alcoholism genes is very important, because it may save or restore lives.

The persons whose genes are marked by vulnerability to alcohol addiction need to be more careful, so that prevention of these people is very important. The scientific director of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism considers that "A genetic screen would shift the focus of treatment to prevention and education".

Dr.Limoila underlines that, in the future, some genetically aspects of vulnerability may be reversed by means of new medicinal drugs with similarly effect to that of Antabuse: the development of repulsion versus alcohol.

It is vital for genetic tests to remain confidential, to prevent effects of Orwellian nature. Doctor Limoila warns of this danger to take for alcoholic people that never drunk alcohol relying only on the genetic inheritance and no man is "born an alcoholic". It is not compulsory for someone with these genes to develop this problem, but the risk of alcoholism is higher in this case.