Originally Posted by
BadCompany 
You seem to imply that the disease concept is a fabrication that started with AA, is that correct?
No, but I see that we need to try this again.
One early member in AA pushed the disease theory as an outside issue. Her name was Marty Mann. I never said that the current disease concept was a fabrication started by AA as a whole. I also said Smithers was a philanthropist. Does that mean that every philanthropist pushed the modern day disease theory? Using your reasoning, you could have easily ask the same question, but you did not. Instead, you thought I was attacking AA, saw what you wanted to see, and arrived at a distorted assumption.
I am not attacking AA. Heck, I am not even attacking Marty Mann, but you probably believe that my words are a personal affront on her when they are not. All I was trying to do was point out that the traction of the current disease concept did not come from medical science, but misguided intentions and a doctor who was a fraud.
From my previous posts since you glossed over them and only saw what you wanted to see.
Originally Posted by Antiderivative
"I also have no problem using the "disease" concept as an analogy, as they did back in the old days of AA before the rehab speak of using a "disease" was infiltrated during the 70's and 80's. "
"Smithers was a great man and great philanthropist and Marty Mann had good intentions to get alcoholism labeled as a "disease" because she wanted to reduce the stigma associated with it...
...Good intentions do not make something true. "
The medical disease concept is an outside issue and historically AA never viewed at alcoholism as a disease in the medical sense. At best, "disease" was used as a metaphor in AA, until rehab speak started to infiltrated AA during the late 70's and 80's and then it started to change meanings.
"We have never called alcoholism a disease because, technically speaking, it is not a disease entity. For example, there is no such thing as heart disease. Instead there are many separate heart ailments, or combinations of them. It is something like that with alcoholism. Therefore we did not wish to get in wrong with the medical profession by pronouncing alcoholism a disease entity. Therefore we always called it an illness, or a malady—a far safer term for us to use.”
--Bill Wilson addressing the annual meeting of the National Catholic Clergy Conference on Alcoholism in 1961