Originally Posted by
madgirl 
Thanks everyone. I understand now that it is an AA construct. I really just did not understand what people meant when they referred to their disease (alcoholism) causing other behaviors besides drinking alcohol consistently to excess.
Many people "transfer" their alcohol addiction to other addictions if they do not do something to recover from the underlying spiritual malady.
Many alcoholics/addicts I know have more than one addictions, with one addiction being the primary one.
Some of us have "sprees" while in recovery. They aren't full-blown addictions, but we turn to other substances or behaviors while trying to recover from our main addiction.
It takes 12 steps to get a spiritual awakening to completely fix the spiritual malady, so that's bound to happen.