NYCDoglvr

The American Medical Association classifies it as a mental illness. As someone pointed out, it's not a disease of the elbow.

Gottalife

This subject came up at a talk I attended a couple of years ago, given by an expert with thirty years in the field, who initially step,out to prove that AA doesn't work.

He stated alcoholism is a brain disease that can be seen on an MRI scanner. Its causes are both genetic and environmental, each component contributing roughly fifty percent. He explained also the DSM V alcohol use disorder concept, which made a great deal of sense to me.

He also stated that there is no medical solution for the chronic cases, and there has been no progress in this area since about 1967, when they were experimenting with lsd.

In my own case, malnutrition, brain and organ damage, muscular atrophy, and a nasty skin condition, all brought on through alcoholism, gave my alcoholism quite a physically damaging component. So I would say it is a disease with many physical symptoms.

But, as someone else also pointed out, there is also a major mental component, having lost the ability to think, make sensible decisions, or see reality. Another medical friend explained that through the malnutrition, mental function is severely impaired, and can descend to a totally instinctual level, which was pretty much what it felt like to me.

The physical damage only required total abstinence to bring about a good recovery, but achieving total and permanent abstinence required the introduction of a spiritual element to the way I had been living.

The obvious things while suffering from this illness were physical and mental, yet the solution was spiritual.

CousinA

Don't know. Don't care. Whatever it is I've got it and found a solution that works for me so disease, malady, affliction or habit is irrelevant in how I live my life.

-allan

Fly N Buy

If there were a once a day pill, I'd take five and then need a pill for the cure.

Alcohol wasn't my problem, it was my solution. I had to find different
solutions.

BrendaChenowyth

It's a psychiatric condition.. it is psychological but has physical manifestations.. alcohol use produces physical symptoms whether you become addicted or not, severe physical symptoms if abused..

IFheweresaught

Alcoholism is an enslaving pleasure, a malady of the spirit, a mental illness. I drank because I was in love with the euphoria. Started as fun, then fun with consequences, then mainly consequences, however my love of the pleasure, my true desire to once again experience the high, was greater than my will to resist.

Only the power of God can sheild me from returning to my old love.

nez

Alcoholism is a complex disorder that is difficult to pigeonhole into a single category. I attempted to do that for years in my quest for the answer to why I drank. I almost did it to the point of no return.

Why? Why? Why?

I was asking the wrong question. When I started asking how could I do something about my alcoholism, I slowly started to get answers to my initial question of why.

I would not undergo a medical solution (if one existed), because it would never give me the answers to why. I would not be the person I am today without knowing the answers to both questions of how? and why? A medical solution would have short changed my recovery.

captainkitty

There are many theories on this and I've read them all. My approach is to get my brain functioning optimally as a healthy brain is better able to handle the "other" stuff . And my Dr agrees. It's only been a week and I still have the same problems I did a week ago, they no longer stress me out...I no longer obsess nor care about figuring out the many reasons that lead to me abusing alcohol... I just feel mentally and emotionally stable and focused on the rest of my life...

ThatWasTheOldMe

I don't understand. I drank to get drunk.
This hypothetical pill would have zero side effects... and it certainly wouldn't artificially make you high.

nez

I immediately understood and could relate.

ScottFromWI

That's the point really....it's not possible to understand why we are alcoholics. And there is no hypothetical pill or procedure to simply "cure" addiction.

I tried desperately to know "why" for years....but I what I really wanted as a way to drink normally again. Until I accepted that I would never be able to do so, I was stuck.

Carlotta

After all this time and all those discussions, I am still on the fence about the disease concept.
I tend to see it more as a (self inflicted) obsessive disorder.
Anyway, disease or not disease I know that I can't drink safely ever again and I am ok with it

Outonthetiles

Hybrid of genetic predisposition and after-acquired disease.

JeffreyAK

I reckon, everything is physical because we're physical beings, and even our personalities are tied up in the cellular automatons that are our brains. Dualists might think otherwise, though, and that's before we even bring up the word "disease". Ultimately, I don't think it matters, however you want to think about it is fine.

dsmaxis10

Disease , mental illness , Spiritual Malady all the above for me .

IFheweresaught

If there was a cure, I would drink! That's alcoholism!

saoutchik

Yes, no question. I suspect that for every one alcoholic/problem drinker who seeks help in online forums such as here or AA or rehab etc there are ten who do not seek help so if it worked then why not. Sadly though that does not seem imminent.

Presumably there is some clinical definition of what constitutes a disease but I am not sure if alcoholism is formally classed as a disease or not.

I suspect that the main reason it is the subject of so many words is because to a greater or lesser degree it is self inflicted.

If a smoker gets lung cancer no one would say that that is not a disease even if it is self inflicted but for some reason if the damage is to our mental health it is regarded diferrently.

Anyway, whatever people want to call it the important thing is getting to stopped.

Algorithm

When Fly N Buy and others say that alcohol wasn't their problem, but rather, their solution, they are usually paraphrasing the Big Book of AA, which claims that liquor was 'but a symptom' (page 64). This is a popular idea, and not much different then the psychological model you appear to subscribe to.

So, do you also believe that your crazy drinking is 'but a symptom' of other deep seated issues, except of the psychological variety, and that you use alcohol to cope and deal with them?

Do you believe that getting to the bottom of it would allow you to drink less crazily than you would if you didn't get to the bottom of it?

I won't use the expression 'drink normally', in the manner that others have. Billions of normal people don't drink any alcohol at all, some by religious edict, others by choice. You could join them, BTW.

RecklessEric

I wasn't spiritual before I drank.
I wasn't spiritual when I drank.
I'm not spiritual now that I no longer drink (although I tried to be for a while when it was suggested).

My point is, I don't have a spiritual malady or disease. I have an addiction.
Which means, I sometimes feel a fierce urge to drink alcohol. When I have a drink, the urge becomes much stronger and I am less able to resist.
So now I don't drink.

I don't buy the disease thing at all.

ThatWasTheOldMe

I mostly think I drank because I'm an *******. I don't talk to people now that I'm sober, and people don't talk to me. The words "worthless piece of garbage" often sneak into my brain when self-reflecting. So I take my Antabuse and just accept that if I drink, bad things happen.