Originally Posted by
MickeyAnMeisce 
It's hilarious (and a bit frightening) how quickly you dismiss cutting-edge medical research for anecdotes and personal experience. Yes, your experience may be that you were able to quit by making a firm promise to yourself to never drink again, but that does not mean that substance dependence does not permanently alter neurochemistry and neuroanatomy in such a way that increases the probability of relapse.
That said, that doesn't mean that you in particular will relapse not does it mean that you aren't responsible for maintaining your own sobriety, but it does mean that dismissing the "addict identity" because it creates a stigma and allegedly promotes relapse is overly simplistic and possibly damaging to long-term sobriety.
Is AVRT actually dismissing the addict label because of the stigma? I thought it was more of a poll going on...
And labels are just means of categorizing in an effort to have efficient communication between groups of people... whatever someone has to tell themself to get sober really is what's important, I think. Labels or no labels... I didn't go into grad school because I became disillusioned by labels (and I thought I was going to be a rock star, but I quickly learned otherwise)... what a silly reason not to further my education.