A comparative study of familial alcoholism.

In a large multicenter study of 568 male alcoholics, structured interviews were used to compare the clinical characteristics of patients with a positive (65%) or negative (35%) family history of abusive drinking among first degree relatives. Alcoholics with a positive family history were found to have: an earlier onset of alcoholism, greater alcoholic severity, more medical and legal problems, a broader range of treatments, an increased lifetime prevalence of additional psychiatric disorders and a greater diversity of psychiatric disturbance among biological relatives. The degree of psychiatric heterogeneity in the patients roughly corresponded to the degree of psychiatric heterogeneity in their families. Assortative mating was proposed as a possible mechanism to account for clinical differences between the familial and nonfamilial alcoholic.