It's a tendency, not the actual alcoholism itself. You won't necessarily get it if your parents/grandparents were alcoholics and you decide to drink without paying attention to control but there's a better than even chance you will.

I agree with Suzy. I think of it like I do other hereditary character "traits" only as one I don't want. My father was perhaps alcoholic but always successful and didn't have any of the gross behaviors/was always controlled but my oldest brother was not so lucky. It's very hard to tell, I think, with those of previous generations (I'm 56 and my brother is in his 60s; my parents were born in the early 19-teens) whether my father/grandmother were true alcoholics or it was "just the way it was." My father lived until 80, was a very kind/good/strong man I was proud of and loved and consider myself fortunate to have found a man "like" him to marry. I often drank heavily in my youth but don't particularly now and didn't have my brother's problems; missing work, being fired from jobs, losing friends/partners, going on "benders," losing money (running up credit cards irresponsibly), etc.

I think it is all a squishy subject with no hard and fast "line" to tell.

I don't like the idea of being afraid of one's self as if one is going to become a monster without "wanting" to/against one's will. I don't think it's quite like crack cocaine where you get addicted and truly can't quit without loads and load of help. With drinking, if you "try" it, it's not going to grab you the way cocaine does. I think it would take habitual, steady use or abuse to become an alcoholic in my book. I don't think if you had a couple drinks on Saturday night with friends playing poker, etc. you'd be/become an alcoholic. But if one lets denial sneak in there and has a history of alcoholism in one's family and doesn't use one's will power to stay free, yes, it's hereditary and can snare you.