I think that alcoholism is a disease, not a character defect.
However, I think that, as an alcoholic, I needed to do more than just stop drinking.
I had to take a look at my life and figure out why I had gone off-track. I was neither dishonest, nor immoral. I needed to find ways to believe in myself and my place in the world, to increase my self-esteem so that I no longer looked for things that were outside of myself, to fill me. I needed to re-connect with my spiritual self, which I had lost as a result of childhood abuse.