Thank you for posting this. I wonder the same thing. A very kind woman that I spoke with this morning and whom has offered to take me to my 2nd meeting tonight says that her alcoholism is a disease the same as her mother's cancer. I said, "But there is not the stigma to cancer as there is to alcoholism..." She says it is a lot better than it was 10 years ago because more and more people are more educated about it and more and more VERY high functioning, successful, well-known professionals and personalities have the disease. I'm new to this so I'm like, "Ok...if y'all say so..."