From the President of the Research Society on Alcoholism In recent
years, increasingly convincing evidence in support of a biobehavioral
conceptual model of the etiology of alcoholism has emerged. In this
model, the disorder is perceived as arising from the interaction of
geneticlbiological vulnerability and psychosocial risk. Drinking, or
alcohol-seeking, is a metric trait. Alcoholism, which is a state of
abnormally intense alcohol-seeking be- havior that, over time, leads to
the alcohol dependence syndrome, lies at the extreme, high end of this
quantitative measure. Metric traits are influenced by multiple genes;
the extent of genetic loading of biological risk for alcoholism would be
different in different individuals. Added to this kind of variability is
the wide range of options for exposure to the psychosocial risk factors
of heavy drinking provided by modern society. Further, environmental
prov- ocation also changes when life events change. It is not
surprising, therefore, from the combination of the kinds of genetic and
environmental variability described above that there is a wide array of
patterns of expression of the disorder alcoholism, referred to by some
as "alcoholisms. " In the search for understanding of underlying
mechanisms and rational bases for potential therapy, it is important to
focus our attention on the final common pathway of this disorder,
alcohol-seeking behavior. This series, ever since its beginning in 1983,
has been sensitive to the complexities of the interaction between
biological and psychosocial risk factors in alcoholism.
