Although many people consume ethanol, the fact that only a select number of individuals develop alcoholism remains enigmatic. Tolerance is thought to play a major role in the progression towards alcoholism and may therefore contribute to risk for the disease. Tolerance is defined as a reduced response to a constant amount of ethanol, such that a greater amount is needed to obtain the same effect. Tolerance is complex because it can involve multiple behaviors that respond to ethanol exposure in different ways. It can also be segregated as either innate or acquired (i.e., requiring a previous ethanol exposure), with the latter being further broken down into acute, rapid, and chronic tolerance, based on the temporal relationship between ethanol exposures and their duration (Kalant et al. 1971). Acute tolerance is characterized by adaptations that occur immediately during exposure to ethanol. Rapid tolerance is typically defined as tolerance manifested after a single exposure has been eliminated from the system. Chronic tolerance involves various forms of multiple or continual ethanol exposure paradigms. GABAA receptors are implicated in tolerance to ethanol’s effects. For instance,
