Alcoholism Persuasive Essay

It is difficult to come up with solutions or ways to slow down alcoholism; however, this challenge isn’t stopping doctors from continuing their research. As they look towards the future, it seems as though with every answer they obtain they are working towards stopping alcoholism. One of the ideas to stop it is perhaps creating a drug that targets the gene that is increasing the chances of alcoholism, “each new addiction gene identified becomes a potential ‘drug target.’ That is researchers can focus on one gene product and develop a drug that modifies its activity,” (“Genes and Addiction” 2). The drug created would target the genes that are causing alcoholism and overturn it so that it will be like that gene doesn’t exist or so that it will strengthen the person against wanting alcohol which could cause them to have harsh reactions to consumption. Another way they plan to go about stopping or slowing down alcoholism is by strengthening the genes that prevent it, “one goal is to locate genes that predispose a person to alcoholism. The other is to identify genes that help prevent this from happening,” (Kibbey 1). Just because one has the gene provoking alcoholism, does not mean they don’t have on preventing it. It just means that the one provoking it is clearly stronger than the one that could potentially prevent it so if the could identify the one provoking it and the one preventing it they could strengthen the one preventing it in order for it to stop the one trying to provoke it. In order to achieve their goals they really have to focus on sequence data to figure out which ones are where and what’s around them so that they
can create a drug to stop alcoholism, “particularly important to the current work is the use of the sequence data to identify which genes are located within the regions that have shown linkage with alcoholism and the other phenotypes examined in the COGA analyses and to identify variations (i.e., polymorphisms ) within those genes,” (Edenberg 217). When they can focus in on the important genes, they will be able to successfully put a stop on alcoholism. Hopefully in the near future, they will have a success sooner than later so people will stop putting their lives as well as the lives of others at serious risk.

Contrary to popular belief that alcoholism is one’s own fault, it is actually a combination of both genetics and the decisions they make based off the environment they grew up in.
When a person learns to cope with situations in a healthy way as well as learning their limits with alcohol, they most likely will not have to deal with
alcoholism.