Individual sensitivity to alcohol has been demonstrated to be an inherited factor that affects the likelihood of drinking and mediates the disposition for developing alcoholism (Schuckit, 1994). Heterogeneity in the intensity of the reported effects of alcohol between individuals has been widely endorsed (Morean and Corbin, 2009). The degree to which an individual responds to a given dose of alcohol is designated their “level of response” (see Schuckit, 2009) The heritability of a person’s level of response, which reflects individual differences in sensitivity to the pharmacological effects of alcohol, has been estimated to be between 0.4 and 0.6 (Heath et al., 1999; Schuckit et al., 2001a). In general, people at higher genetic risk for alcoholism are less sensitive to the effects of alcohol and people at lower genetic risk for alcoholism are more sensitive. Support for this theory is provided by many, but not all, studies directly examining the reaction to alcohol among children of alcoholics, who are at greatly elevated risk for developing alcoholism (Schuckit, 1984). Results have indicated that at moderate doses of alcohol, subjects who are family
