Originally Posted by
Kjell 
All good points, but there are a lot we simply don't know about alcoholism and will probably never know.
I think we can all agree on that.
It's just not a simple disease, illness, condition, mental problem - whatever you want to call it.
For so many people to be affected all over the world for so long, I'm so grateful there are solutions though!
Kjell~
My thinking revolves more about what I think is fact and what I think is fiction. I think we as individuals have many individual problems aside from alcohol. And many of our alcohol problems are very different as well. The commonality we all have is if we want our alcohol problem to stop we need to stop drinking and learn/retrain ourselves to accept and be happy with that decision.
I understand finding spirituality may make many of us happy, and feeling like we have a guiding light and a purpose will also make many of us feel content with our problems, but alcohol abuse is something that we learned and can unlearn. There isn't "untreated alcoholism" left over after you abstain from drinking, there may be many personal problems and broken relationships and even wrecked lives, which I think many recovery programs try to address, but anything other than the the abuse of alcohol should not be considered alcoholism. I agree these other issues may lead people back to their addiction or maybe a new one, but it was important for me to know in my recovery that although other problems may remain, when the alcohol is removed so is the alcoholism.