Dr. Keith Humphreys

So, I had an injury, I broke my ulna and I had to take Vicodin for the pain afterwards.

I find taking opioids so unpleasant, I feel bound up, miserable, groggy, that I just took one and said pain is better than this.

I have worked with people clinically who say the first time I had an opioid, it was like a hole in my chest that had been there my whole life filled up for the very first time.

That has everything to do with genes, there's no learning history there, right?

But there's something, you know, I'm just wired differently for that particular drug than people who get in trouble with it is.

And these don't necessarily go in groups, so someone can, you know,

hate opioids but love cannabis or love alcohol and that of course is going to change their risk, how could it not?

It's marketed.

It's legal.

Yes.

That is the most helpful advice.

So I can never tell you if in this game of Russian roulette, the bullet will not be in your chamber for sure.

I can say like you're less likely for this, more likely for that.

but the only way to determine that a substance will not damage your life is to never use it in the first place.

There's always going to be some risk.

There's been a lot of work on like kind of genotyping to try to figure out, could I tell people what the genetic risk is for alcohol?

And nothing is as good as just saying, your parents alcoholic?

Yeah or no?

And if they were, that's like the most useful bit of information.

Or does, you know, does problem drinking run in your family?