AA Is Not The Only Way

One of the difficulties in recognizing alcoholism as a disease is it just plain doesn’t seem like one. It doesn’t look, sound, smell and it certainly doesn’t act like a disease. To make matters worse, generally it denies it exists and resists treatment.

Alcoholism has been recognized for many years by professional medical organizations as a primary, chronic, progressive and sometimes fatal disease. The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence offers a detailed and complete definition of alcoholism, but probably the most simple way to describe it is "a mental obsession that causes a physical compulsion to drink."

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My mother’s friend, a woman we all loved, was an alcoholic. She would go for months without a drink, then when something bad happened to her, she would start to drink. She would drink constantly until she had to be put away. She would come back home like her old self but eventually the cycle would repeat itself. It kept up until her death.
And yes, I believe it’s a disease.
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I do not like to think of Addiction as Disease because, the person if they never took that drink would not be addicted. However, if you go by strict definitions which according to Marion Webster Dictionary:

Disease:
a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms

Then yes, the alcohol has caused the person in questions body to not function normally which makes it a disease. However, again most diseases it just happens and there is nothing you can necessarily do to not get it. With Alcoholism, the person in question COULD have made the choice not to take that first drink, which is why I believe some don’t consider it a disease.
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I do not believe it is a disease.

It does not spread like a virus or a cancer. It is not an infection caused by bacteria or fungus. There is no biological contamination involved except for the alcohol itself.

When I say this, and when people say this, I’m sure it sounds like the people addicted to alcohol are being judged, and that is not the case, at least not in the way people seem to think.

I just don’t understand how it can be considered to be a disease, period. What about Epilepsy? Chicken Pox? Cancer? Erectile Dysfunction?

People say that drinking isn’t a problem unless it starts to interfere with work, family life, health etc. etc… Well personally believe that more often then not the person involved simply chooses to drink and subsequently chooses not to go to work, or keep good health or what-have-you.

As in, why do alcoholics drink? From what I have seen, it’s to numb emotional or physical pain, to relax, to party… "Man I’m so depressed because my wife left me, I need a drink", may be an example of an addiction, but in no way is that a disease.

In my opinion, having an addiction, being irresponsible, and being sick are three things that in no way are necessarily the same.

This would be impractical at best, but for the sake of argument what if I forcibly strapped someone with ‘alcoholism’ into a chair in my basement and kept him there, without any access to booze. Wouldn’t that "cure" the "disease" eventually?

But you can’t just die down and force the mentally sick to be "normal" and cure that set of problems.

But to be clear, yes I do believe that alcoholism can be defined as a physical, psychological, and emotional addiction. And, I did not answer this question to try to say that anybody is wrong or right, I just wanted to say that I disagree with something.

I
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Easy
Acute intoxication is a disease in which the person goes through withdrawal this can go from a hangover to DT’s which can be fatal.

Additionally after the acute withdrawal, a person will often have a psychological addiction; they must undergo counseling for this. While alcoholic anonymous has been shown to have a negative success rate (i.e. people relapse more after joining alcoholics anonymous than just trying abstinence on your own) it has a powerful support group. This is because has been defined by the higher courts as a religion, and by many prominent authors as a religious cult. Like all cults, it preys on people during a tough time in their life.

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http://www.orange-papers.org/