The present study found no association of family history of alcoholism with the overall measure of acute adaptation. This is surprising, as family history would be expected to capture greater genetic variation in individual responses to alcohol than a single SNP, and multiple studies have shown that subjective responses to alcohol differ in individuals with a history of alcoholism in their families compared to subjects with no family history (e.g. Morzorati et al., 2002; Schuckit and Smith, 1996) though several studies have not (e.g. (Kerfoot et al., 2013; Wetherill et al., 2012). It is possible that in the present study, the genotypic effects of GABRA2 accounted for much of the variability in the acute adaptation of subjective perceptions, and that family history did not account for a substantial portion of the remaining variability.
