A tremendous amount of attention and research has recently been concentrated on the inheritance of alcoholism and on the possibility of accounting genetically for drunken behavior. Genetic studies utilizing twins and families have demonstrated a considerable role for genetics alcohol addiction. Risk for alcoholism is likely to be the result of a large number of genes, each contributing a small fraction of the overall risk. While this review will focus on studies of role genetics in alcohol addiction. The review will briefly summarize neurobiology and genetic epidemiology that provide estimations of heritability. For each topic the data will be presented alcohol dependence, In addition, each section will review briefly some of the confounding issues in the specific type of approach utilized.