ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what is known about the influences on the child which go to forming subsequent attitudes towards alcohol and its use in adolescence and beyond. Life experiences and opportunities for drinking were what determined drinking habits and the task of treatment and of education was to understand why certain individuals came to drink so much. The precise nature of this genetic transmission is not known, and it may in fact be a particular kind of emotional predisposition which is being transmitted. The childhood images of the father with his can of beer at his side, watching football on television, or of the parent serving drinks to friends at a party are taken in and often enacted in children’s play. The growing interest in family therapy for alcoholics will hopefully enable those children at risk to be reached and offered help at an early stage.
