This is a very interesting discussion, not so much for me from an objective understanding of who is or isn't an alcoholic, what is or isn't the AV and so on... BUT from a curious observation of our narratives in the addiction/recovery world.
For a while now I have been listening to a Podcast called "unbelievable", it is a christian podcast that discusses some of the big points surrounding christianity and it often invites non-christians and atheists on to debate certain subjects, But it also often has Christians from different sects, denominations, and cultures debating each other on the meaning of Christianity and interpretations of the Bible. I find these Podcasts the most fascinating, not because I am looking to be convinced about anything being spoken (I don't believe any of it) but seeing well educated, well spoken very smart people expressing different interpretations of things and calling it TRUTH tells me a lot about myself and human nature. Each person often expresses polite suggestions that the other is just a bit off center in their understanding, and each person holds a strong belief they hold the TRUTH in their interpretation. What appears to be happening is people hold onto their own unmovable dogma, deep values that (even-though are expressed as unimportant to the big picture) are deeply important to the christian narrative of the individual.
These Narratives are also strongly found in our addiction/recovery discussions, the only difference for me from observing the people on "unbelievable" is I am part of the discussion (not an observer) and YES I too have my recovery/addiction script to throw into the mix. My fascination in regards to these discussions is about cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.
If we break down our motivations and need to call ourselves certain things to reinforce our narrative we can find some interesting similarities. The person who uses the Alcoholic tag with definite personal conviction (usually to re-inforce a certain narrative) is not all that different from the person who uses the non-alcoholic tag with equal personal conviction, in some ways we could consider these attitudes as two sides of the same coin. When a person is strongly suggestive that the future possibility of drinking is not extinguished (with a statement of "I will never drink again) any language that takes the foot of this "Big Plan" pedal can be seen as AV, but if I hold onto other narratives Its easy to argue that imagining your future non drinking self is also a backdoor version of the AV why? Because there is a narrative of the present where relapse will occur in the Now, there are ideas that we are most vulnerable when we proclaim an absolute we cannot possibly know. Most of us don't really express these two views with extreme language However they do remain under the surface and seem to emerge when push comes to shove.
I personally think both views are problematic and I actually direct my contemplation to other deeper underlying principles that may require Skepticism, including the validity of reference to an AV, what we mean by the AV and the fallback towards dualistic and pluralistic States. It fascinates me to listen to my own stories, to show how my sex, age, culture, genetics, drug of choice, extent of problems associated my addiction and many other things govern my Values in recovery, that for the most part I am attracted to things that verify my values and dismiss things that don't. Mindfully seeing my biases, seeing my cognitive processes, seeing my confident statements based on flimsy evidence, seeing my pseudo scientific interpretations.
How interesting it is to see how we claim we follow the evidence in working out our sobriety, yet we probably find ways that validate our deeper values (in other words we make the evidence fit our beliefs) we cherry pick the supporting views and dismiss the opposing views. Some of us make claims to having science on our side, Yet any descent evaluation of the Science of addiction will demonstrate that scientists are only just scratching the surface of understanding addiction and are even less closer to having solutions. Yet many of us make confident claims that science back up our beliefs.
OK, OK let me stop ranting here..... At the end of the day my only real motivation in coming into SR and discussing issues as found in this POST is to encourage others to think about things, to develop positive skepticism and ask questions, to investigate your own claims and that of others, to see past biases and absolutes, I cant make any great claim that Skepticism will = sobriety, but what I can say is sobriety for me is much more stable on platform of mindful, curious, rich and robust inquiry and the integrity found in searching for what is real.