Ozzy Osbourne's ability to have withstood years of drug and alcohol abuse could be the result of a genetic mutation. That's the conclusion reached in a new book about how genetics shape individuals in ways that have heretofore been unanswered.

“Ozzy is indeed a genetic mutant,” Bill Sullivan writes in Pleased to Meet Me: Genes, Germs and the Curious Forces that Make Us Who We Are. As reported in the New York Post, the book, which borrows its name from a 1987 album by the Replacements, details that Knome, Inc. looked at Osbourne's DNA in 2010 and determined that not only is he genetically predisposed towards addiction, which Sullivan adds “has more to do with our DNA than our moral fiber,” but a unique mutation allows him to drink in larger-than-normal quantities.

Sullivan, a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, suggests that DNA is responsible for everything from our emotions and food preferences to sexual orientations and political tendencies. “After all these years of thinking we were free agents," he notes, "we’ve come to realize that most, if not all, of our behavior is not of our own volition. ... However magical they may feel to you, your emotions are purely biological in origin”

The book adds that difficult experiences in childhood can affect the way the genes express themselves during adulthood. They “don’t just get under the skin; they get into victims’ DNA, scarring their genetic code in ways we are just beginning to understand,” Sullivan writes.

 

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