Did I drink myself stupid because I inherited ‘alcohol genes’? asks Julie Cook – Revealing DNA study links alcohol consumption to genetics

A pair of unfamiliar eyes looked into mine when I woke up. They belonged to a man in a fluorescent jacket and green overalls, like those paramedics wear.

“You’re doing well,” he said kindly. ‘How do you feel now?’

My head pounded as I sat up and found myself on a cold, metal couch in the middle of the night. I heard a train announcement and realized I was at a train station.

Panic coursed through me as I struggled to remember what I was doing there. Had I had an accident?

The paramedic patiently explained that I had boarded the train home, fallen asleep and the ticket officer had been unable to rouse me to check my ticket.

They had stopped the train at Woking (an unscheduled stop) and I had been taken away unconscious and unconscious by the emergency services.

There was nothing medically wrong; I was a healthy woman in my twenties. I was just horribly, humiliatingly drunk, after drinking prosecco with colleagues in a pub for about seven hours. The last thing I remembered was getting on the train. Then I blacked out.

It’s a story that may sound disturbingly familiar. From office parties to intimate holiday dinners, the temptation is enormous this time of year.

At least, that was always my experience until I quit drinking in 2019 after years of being a borderline alcoholic binge drinker.

Once, while leaving a large party, I fell down drunk outside a Park Lane hotel and had to be helped off the sidewalk by a valet driver. Christmas itself was often a blur.

Going out on Christmas Eve, sloshing, vomiting, waking up on Christmas Day with a hangover, throwing up again, cooking a roast while feeling nauseous, starting on the dog’s hair and then drinking until New Year’s Eve.

At the time I laughed it off as seasonal exuberance. But now that I think about it, I’m ashamed of it. Sometimes I would become verbally abusive when I was drunk and then not remember what I said to my ex-partner the next day.

When I was thirty, I married my husband Cornel. He has never been a big drinker and has surprisingly tolerated me, but often said he hoped I would cut down.

So imagine my delight when I received convincing proof that this predilection for Christmas cheer was not entirely my fault; that my body was programmed to drink excessively while friends around me quit.

Research from Penn State University in the US into genes linked to alcohol consumption has found that how much you drink can be significantly influenced by your DNA.

When the 3.4 million participants in the study were asked how much they drank, the 10 percent of people from a white European background with the highest genetic score associated with drinking put down an average of more than seven drinks per week.

Yet the 10 percent with the lowest genetic score drank fewer than four drinks per week.

Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed from the University of Liverpool worked on another such study that identified genetic variants linked to drinking.

That study found that those who drank heavily – at least five bottles of wine a week for men, and three and a half for women – shared six specific genetic variants.

He explains: ‘With the help of the UK Biobank [a bank containing the genetic information of half a million people]we identified that people who drank more heavily tended to have certain variants in their genes, the most common of which was ADH1B.

‘Indeed, 50 percent of the variance for alcohol use disorder is explained by genetic factors. If you carry these variants – some people have one or two, some have all six – it increases your risk of drinking more heavily.’

Curious, I used the genetic testing company 23andme and discovered that I have not just one, but four genetic variants of ‘alcoholic dependence’ (including ADH1B) that predispose a person to drink more and be more likely to develop alcoholism.

Relief flowed through me. I felt vindicated, as if the weight of guilt and shame had been lifted. But there were also questions.

Professor Pirmohamed is keen to emphasize that alcoholism is not a foregone conclusion for those who carry these variants.

“No single gene by itself is necessary or sufficient to lead to alcohol dependence,” he says. ‘Other lifestyle factors also play a role, such as family, life experience, social groups and even access to alcohol.’

I thought about my father, who died of cancer at the age of 59. Had I inherited his genes? Like me, he ‘reserved’ his drinking for a Friday and Saturday evening, becoming lighter and more talkative with each drink.

He told me stories about how as a child he wasn’t allowed to see his own father when he was drinking, and said his mother locked his father in another room.

So was it passed down to both of us from my grandfather? Does this mean I passed it on to my own children aged 15 and 10?

I was 13 when I tasted alcohol for the first time, from my father’s home-brewed barrel. Giggling, my friends and I helped ourselves while he worked. But while they had one or two glasses, I had four.

And so the pattern was set. We had older kids go to the liquor store and buy us alcopops and cider. But when others stopped, I drank until I couldn’t get up anymore.

As a young journalist, women were encouraged to ‘drink men under the table’. And so my tolerance increased. On a meal day I easily drank two bottles of wine.

Then I’d wake up in the early hours, with a dry mouth, a pounding head, and the horrors of 3am – did I fall last night? Who have I offended?

Strangely enough, I never thought I had a drinking problem, and no one ever told me I did. Looking back, I would call myself a functioning binge drinker (my career never failed) rather than an alcoholic. But once I started drinking, I couldn’t stop.

When I had my two kids, in 2008 and 2013, I stopped drinking altogether when they were little, but fell off the wagon when they were older, indulging on weekends as a “treat” after they went to bed had gone.

I had conditioned myself to believe that alcohol was a tonic. Because you’re bored. Or angry. Or sad. Or tired.

It wasn’t until one evening in 2019, when I was 42, that I found the inner strength to quit.

I was in Paris with my husband, having a cocktail, and I thought, ‘I don’t like doing this anymore.’ I wanted to see Napoleon’s grave the next day without a hangover. I haven’t touched a drink since.

It may sound bizarre that someone who seemingly has no off switch can stop so suddenly. But I had been thinking about it for a while and hated the shame and the vague memory. I knew moderation would never work for me.

The fact that I was able to quit so suddenly gives me hope that while our behavior around drinking may be a genetic predisposition, it may not be a curse.

Professor Pirmohamed says: ‘It doesn’t mean that if you carry those genes you will always drink heavily. It’s about avoiding triggers where you can.”

I can testify that life sober is so much better. I notice more, I remember more, I sleep well.

I wish I had known sooner that I had this genetic predisposition. Would it have helped me curb my drinking? I don’t know, but it explains my huge tolerance for alcohol.

I hope this hasn’t been passed on to my children, but if any signs of addiction ever arise, I will be the first to bring this up to them.

Meanwhile, this Christmas (my fifth sober), while other people start on the sherry, I’ll be on sparkling elderflower water.

One friend suggested that I’m still “addicted,” but addicted to not drinking. I’m happy to accept that.