Research suggests that alcoholism and other forms of addiction are genetic.

Or, at least, it seems to run in families.

Maybe that’s partly why it snuck up on us.  We know of no genetic link in our family.

Recently, I stood at the exit of a fellowship meeting in South Florida alongside my son watching two couples with newborn sons.

I wondered if they wondered as I did – what they might have passed on to their children.

In this tight-knit addiction and recovery community – or in any area of the world – fathers and mothers seem to pass the condition on to sons and daughters, and they to their children.

On this evening each baby was sweetly snuggled into a safe carrier.  They attracted quite the entourage of gaping onlookers.  Men and women alike stood silently, their faces frozen in a soft moment, smiling down at the infants, all thoughts pure and clean, like the faint scent of baby powder playing in the air.

Were they thinking as I?

Ten, 15, 20 years from now, what will life be like for these little ones?  Will they escape the harsh years their parents endured, or will they suffer days of anguish, isolation, and shame?

I stared at these tiny beings and wondered.  Like any disease or chronic condition, maybe addiction will witness a future with fresh cures.

Given the high-tech, AI world these children will occupy – and the predictable loss of hundreds of thousands more lives to alcohol and other addictions – maybe there will be new paths to recovery.

And maybe they will live in a world where addiction is no longer cloaked in darkness, where kindness and tolerance supplant ignorance and shame.

Staring into the milky blue eyes of babies barely weeks old, watching their adoring parents, we feel love – and hope.