I agree with a lot of what Freepath said. However, I feel if you push this thinking to the extreme, we can argue that mental illness is not a disease. And it's dangerous to go there.
For me, it doesn't really matter who calls it what. I don't have a choice over my alcohol cravings but I do have a choice to drink or not. The only problem I have with the disease thinking is that it's easy to justify any bad behavior as "My disease made me do it."