The substantial body of evidence supporting familial influences on the development of alcohol use disorders (AUDs), both genetic and environmental (1–9), lacks a correspondingly large literature regarding familial influences on remission from AUDs. Studies that have included family history of AUD as a predictor of remission in AUD-affected individuals have yielded few significant results, regardless of how remission was defined. In a national population-based investigation, family history of AUD was associated with non-abstinent remission cross-sectionally but not longitudinally, and had no association with abstinent remission (10, 11). In a male sample ascertained at birth and followed over 40 years, paternal AUD predicted higher risk for developing an AUD but had no association with the likelihood of abstinent or non-abstinent remission (12). Family history of AUD was not associated with remission, defined as absence of AUD symptoms without regard to alcohol consumption, in population-based data (13) or in a Native-American sample (14). The lack of evidence for familial influences on remission from AUDs contrasts sharply with evidence that the heritability for the development of AUDs is 50–60% (4, 5, 9), and
