Katherine Ketcham and William F. Asbury with Mel Schulstad and Arthur P. Ciaramicoli

About the author: Katherine Ketcham is the author of Under the Influence: A Guide to Myths and Realities of Alcoholism. William F. Asbury is a journalist and former editor-in-chief of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Mel Schulstad is the cofounder and former president of the National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors. Arthur P. Ciaramicoli is a licensed clinical psychologist.

Alcoholism has been viewed as a shameful personal weakness and not as a debilitating disease. However, research studies have shown that alcoholism is in fact a genetically determined disease. In 1990 Kenneth Blum, who spent years searching for the specific genetic markers for the disease of alcoholism, finally found a genetic mutation on chromosome 11 that greatly increases an individual's risk of developing alcoholism. Although this discovery did not hold...