Originally Posted by
redtailgal 
I dont know. I am on the fence with this one.
I *think* that I think alcoholism is a disease, but my hesitation is quite simply because for YEARS my mother has said (about my brother) "His alcoholism is a disease." and in doing so, acted like we should sympathize and hold his hand. Not to mention, it made brother feel like the poor poor victim.....he loves the attention and drinks more to get more.
Alcoholism may be a disease, and but alcoholism as a disease is not an excuse.
Wow. How simply put and yet how full of truth! Good job.
I lost a best friend to her alcoholism. She's not dead yet, as far as I know, but she is dead to me--it's easier to think that way then to watch her and listen to her brain-damaged conversation. It's been three years since I cut her off forever. Still, she's in my mind because wherever she is, she turned 50 this week.
But, I would describe her the same way, and others who knew her said the same thing--she was a person who always needed attention, and drinking was part of the way she brought attention to herself. She was sober for seven wonderful years, and a good friend to me then--I think of THAT person as the one who died. But, even then, that need to get attention beyond what a normal healthy adult should do was still there, but only annoying in a minor way. She would pretend to be dumber than she was, for example, saying things that even she knew were stupid so that she could play this air-heady little blonde-girl act. It got kind of uncomfortable to watch after she was 40.
Anyway, she got cancer--Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma right after she lost a good job through no fault of her own. Many people helped her out during her treatment, and she got lots of attention when she was sick. Then, as soon as the treatment ended and she was in remission, and after seven years of sobriety, she promptly picked up the bottle of vodka and started to drink with a dedication usually seen only in Olympic Athletes. It's as of she was going through withdrawal from the cancer attention and was going to get it another way. She went to rehab three times in five months, started to become severely brain-damaged/wet-brained from the withdrawal seizures she'd have all the time, and it got to the point where you almost wanted to bash her head in with a rock because it was unbearable to see her that way. She became far worse than she was when she originally drank pre-recovery, and that was pretty bad. I had no choice but to cut her off.
But that "look at me, I need attention 24 hours a day!" thing was always there under the surface, and I do think it related to her drinking. It's not hard to do an armchair analysis, either--baby of the family/youngest of five kids born late in her parents' lives, I don't think she ever learned to play any role other than that one, and coupled with the alcoholic tendency in her extended family, it was a disaster.