Like anything else, our society tries to file addiction/alcoholism under one neat label. Even though the effects of addiction on family and friends and usually very similar, the reasons for the addiction, genetic predisposition, recovery or lack there of, are as different as people are. For example, years ago I had a girlfriend who was in the beginning stages of alcoholism. She had resigned herself to the fact that she was going to end up "sitting at a bar counting her pennies". This was 25 years ago, and from what I hear, she is doing just that, as well as now being into heroin. This was a woman with a good job, great husband, nice home, etc. She eventually lost her marriage because she refused to stop going to bars. I had another friend who also "had it all". She came from a great family and, again, had the job, marriage, home. She went from going out for a few after work to carrying vodka in her water bottle at work. She lost most of her liver and is living in borrowed time. She was the classic denial case, who never admitted her problem until she became physically ill. Now, take my XAH. He comes from an extremely dysfunctional family. (They are so bad, if they made a soap opera about them it would make Jerry Springer's guests seem like Ward and June Cleaver.) With or without drugs and alcohol, he and his siblings are for the most part socially and morally inept due to their awful upbringing.
Woman number one was totally different from number two. You could almost see her making the decision on where her life was headed, and she used everything and anything to get high as the mood struck her. Number two was, IMO, unable to stop drinking until her life depended on it. But she never used any other substances. My XAH absolutely, positively, made a choice to abuse alcohol and drugs ~ I know, I was there. Could he stop now? I doubt it. Not unless he hit bottom and decided he wanted to go up to the light again.
Finally, take me. I knew all these people because at one time, I was a party girl. I drank with the best of them, and drank quite a few under the table. But for whatever reason, I stopped. My body and mind had enough. I became too afraid of the consequences of my behavior. Now if I have a dozen drinks a year, thats going some.
So why can one person stop and others not? Why did my XAH make a choice to use? Why did it take girl number two a brush with death to stop drinking? How could girl number one actually predict her future and not try and change it? To me the answer lies in that grey area. Sure, there is choice involved. I think sometimes we do give our addicts a bit too much of a free pass by not acknowledging their free will. But on the other hand, what else but an uncontrollable disease would cause someone to almost lose their life in search of a drink? Or a drug?