Stress Tolerance: Patterns of Inheritance

Most people can handle the stresses of modern life, stresses considered “normal” in our society, without developing any problems. But about ten percent of our population cannot handle these stresses.

ONE IN TEN PERSONS IS FUNCTIONING IN OVERSTRESS RIGHT NOW-AT STRESS LEVELS THE OTHER NINE HANDLE WITHOUT ANY PROBLEM.

The reason these people are more susceptible to stress is that they have inherited a Low Stress Tolerance. These persons develop Happy Messenger failure at levels of stress that others handle with ease. For a person with this inherited problem, 150 on the stress scale is enough to affect Happy Messenger function, and cause OVERSTRESS. For most people, OVERSTRESS may be a temporary condition, but for these ten percent of persons, OVERSTRESS is a life-long problem. In our society, if you cannot handle a 150 stress level, you will be in OVERSTRESS forever.

Such persons typically show signs of OVERSTRESS when they approach their teen years. As we have seen, the teen years are one of the most stressful times in a person’s life. When a child who inherits a Low Stress Tolerance enters the teen years, fatigue, sleep problems, depression, crying spells, and anxiety may become manifest.

The teenager will begin to rely on Pick-Me-Up’s as “medicines” to make him or her feel better. Patterns of bingeing or maintenance with Pick-Me-Up’s will be established. And the person will often by stuck for the rest of his or her life on the wild “roller coaster”.

"….A host of stressors on the other hand, balanced by alcohol, sugar, caffeine, and an army of Pick-Me-Up’s on the other. It is a constant juggling act which serves to partially normalize brain function for a few hours, followed by a crash, and then more Pick-Me-Up “medicine”…

This low Stress Tolerance is an inherited characteristic, and runs very strongly in families. If you keep in mind the broad range of Pick-Me-Up’s that people use, it is very easy to spot families where Pick-Me-Up use is rampant. Since the inherited problem is Low Stress Tolerance, you will see numerous family members with signs of OVERSTRESS: sleep problems, fatigue, depression, anxiety, all occurring at stress levels that appear “normal” in our society. Most of the members of the family will have learned to “treat” themselves with some type of Pick-Me-Up. They will use their Pick-Me-Up in either a binge or maintenance style.

Thus, the person you are talking to may be complaining of fatigue, crying, being overwhelmed by life, or anxiety attacks. One or both parents may have been an alcoholic (more often the part of the same sex), a brother may be a workaholic. Someone else in the family may have stopped drinking alcohol but smokes three packs per day, eats ice cream, sweets, and coffee all day long. The variations are endless, but the findings are the same. Pick-Me-Up use runs rampant in many families, practically non-existent in others.

But, you may ask, how do we know that this is an inherited problem? How do we know that the extensive use of Pick-Me-Up’s in the family is not caused by the family environment? Wouldn't it be plausible that an alcoholic father would have an alcoholic son because the son would have “learned to drink alcohol”? wouldn't it be plausible that families that use Pick-Me-Up’s teach their children to use Pick-Me-Up’s also?

A very interesting study has been done looking at children who were given up for adoption at birth. Thousands of children were involved. These children were placed in new homes right after they were born. They never knew their biological parents. The topic of the study was the pattern of the use of the Pick-Me-Up, alcohol.

The study produced several surprising findings. The first was that children who did not have an alcoholic biologic parent were not likely to become alcoholics, even if they were raised by alcoholic adoptive parents. Thus, merely being raised by an alcoholic in no way caused children to become alcoholics.

On the other hand, sons whose biological fathers were alcoholics, were nine times more likely to be alcoholics. And daughters whose biological mothers were alcoholic were three times more likely to become alcoholics—even though the children knew nothing about their biological parents.

This study on adopted children has been interpreted to show that alcoholism is an inherited disease. What it actually shows, however, is that Low Stress Tolerance is an inherited condition. “Alcoholism” is not the disease, it is merely the major Pick-Me-Up that the person is using to try to “medicate” himself.

In previous years, it was not recognized that the various Pick-Me-Up’s work in a similar fashion. These Pick-Me-Up’s serve as “medicines” that a person uses to try to make himself/herself feel more normal again. All the Pick-Me-Up’s work by temporarily boosting the function of Happy Messengers. Since this common mechanism of action is still not widely recognized, it is common to hear people speak of the use of a specific Pick-Me-Up as a “disease” in-and-of itself.

For instance, people talk about “alcoholics”, and the disease of “alcoholism”. They speak of “workaholics”, “compulsive gamblers”, “compulsive eaters”, and “cocaine addicts”, as if the use of each specific Pick-Me-Up is a separate disease. In reality, most of these persons have the same underlying problem: an OVERSTRESS which makes them feel ill, and for which they are attempting to treat themselves with some form of Pick-Me-Up. These persons are merely trying to cope, as best they can, with OVERSTRESS.

SOURCE: (This landmark study can be found in the literature under Bohman, “Inheritance of Alcoholism: cross fostering analysis of adopted men”, Arch of Gen Psychiatry 1981, vol. 38 pp. 861-868; See also volume pp. 968-969 for cross fostering analysis of adopted women)