I appreciate the answers so far and I hope to hear more, but I'd like to ask even MORE questions, based on what some of the other posters have said. However, please keep in mind that I have no intention to be snarky -- I'm responding with questions about something that is very complex and difficult for all of us (addicts and families/friends) to comprehend:
• What did alcoholics in the USA do during the era of Prohibition? The sale of alcohol was illegal, and we can be sure that that did not stop the majority of alcoholics from obtaining it, just like addicts of heroin, cocaine, crack, etc. today find ways to obtain illegal substances.
• Buying glue or gasoline and inhaling the fumes doesn't involve the purchase of an illegal substance, but I know of addicts who do that. Every few weeks there's a new substance on the streets, one that has yet to be classified as illegal by the government. Does ANYTHING about the addict's illness change on the day that his/her drug of choice is categorized as "illegal"?
• Are there no alcoholics who resort to prostitution to support themselves and obtain alcohol? Is that not illegal activity in most parts of the USA? Are there no alcoholics who steal? None who drive while intoxicated? There is PLENTY of illegality associated with alcoholism, so saying that the difference between AA and NA or Al-Anon and Nar-Anon is LEGALITY simply does not hold water in my mind.
And the "social acceptance" of alcohol (and alcoholism) doesn't hold water, either. Marijuana is basically just as accepted in the minds of the most people under 40, and in richer circles in the 70's and 80's, cocaine use was just as common and considered the norm. Yes, alcohol IS the most readily available drug in our culture, and it permeates our social interactions, but does that make alcoholics different in any substantial way? Are the families and friends different in any substantial way? We can't even say that alcoholism is "slower" in terms of the disease's progress, or that an alcoholic develops over more time than, say, a crack addict. Yes, I know that some alcoholics became addicts over time (as is the case with some other substances), but how many accounts have we all heard of an alcoholic who knew at the first time that he or she got drunk that this was "the one" for them?
This sounds like "terminal uniqueness" thinking: that somehow alcoholics are different than other drug addicts, that since alcohol (and therefore, alcoholism) has been in human culture for thousands of years it's somehow more acceptable, or that the "newer" substances have less pedigree of something like that.
This is divisive and stigmatizing. Why should a mother have to feel uncomfortable at an Al-Anon meeting when she talks about her son's use of illegal drugs? WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT OUR EFFORTS TO UNDERSTAND THE ILLNESS?