However, a number of human environmental influences on excessive drinking appear to represent situational goads or constraints that are likely to interact with genetically influenced traits, but not necessarily by getting “under the skin” and influencing underlying physiology. (Clearly, there is a continuum here of “how much” a given environmental exposure induces a transient versus durable effect.) Such situational goads are many and diverse and include simple availability, specific occasions (e.g., celebrations and holiday), specific activities (e.g., tailgating, prepartying, drinking games), housing, social networks, community variables, and price. Some of these types of situational factors (e.g., availability and price) could be modeled in animals and could be important for both identifying GXE interactions highly related to variable aspects of drinking. Moreover, systematically varying these situational variables could prove to be a useful strategy in establishing the robustness of other genetic and environmental manipulations.
