Originally Posted by
brynn 
Robbyrobot...i like a lot of what you've said and it gives me a little different perspective, thanks. I'm curious, when you say that alcoholism is an illness are you saying it's a mental illness or physical illness or both?
Hello Brynn
I'm sure we can all agree its unhelpful for any of us to generalize our personal experiences with alcohol as a kind of definitive proof so as to naysay or promote any actual bona fide definition. We all have our experiences, and we all have our personal understandings drawn from such and from the related experiences of others, and everything in between.
With that said, my personal experience is alcoholism is an endurable, incurable illness of mind, body, and spirit, specific to chronic alcohol addiction. This is to say without alcohol, the addiction is dead. The illness however is the damage already done, and not the addiction proper. The damage done didn't just end with my abstinence. My mind was entirely alcoholic-minded ie I mentally craved opportunities for drinking alcohol and became obsessed with fulfilling such cravings. This was my AV, no less. I successfully separated myself from my alcoholic thinking in 1981, years before AVRT was publically formalized as knowledge.
My body too has a specific reaction to alcohol which disallows my being able to "just enjoy a drink" as drinking to a blackout was common in my drinking days. As well, having even small amounts of alcohol the drug in my body always created a physical craving for more alcohol and damn the consequences.
Spiritually speaking, my personal inner desire and want to live while drunk was almost obliterated at my deepest core levels. Drinking became an instrument of suicide more than anything else, and even with this self-destructive knowledge in hand and realized, I couldn't summon myself to want to be sober, alive, and happy. The best I could do was to attempt to not die from drinking even though I was in fact dying nonetheless. I drank in a serious manner from age 12 to age 24. I knew I was undone by 15. I wanted to absolutely quit by age 18. It wasn't until age 24 I actually successfully quit. I've stayed quit ever since.
My alcoholism is not progressing. It is in permanent remission. I'm recovered inasmuch as my sober life has long ago eclipsed or otherwise managed practical solutions to the damage done. I'm still living with certain consequences of my chronic alcoholism, and these same responsibilities will follow me to my end of days. I'm okay with all that and no worries as my sober life is a complete revolutionary change of mind, body, and spirit. I'll never drink again. And I'll never change my mind.
Hope that helps on some level satisfy your curiosity. Thanks for having a relevant question Brynn.