Personally I suspect that once someone has crossed the line to 'week long benders' they're slightly more than 'problem drinkers'. Why, in your (Scientific and non-personal) opinion would someone let an intended 'normal' drink turn into the 'week long bender' other than not being able to control their drinking or make rational decisions about drinking once they had alcohol in them?
I'd also be interested to know your (scientific and non-personal) definition of an alcoholic.
If I wasn't 'allergic' to sweetcorn so much it would actually kill me, but just give me explosive bowels, and knowing that if I started eating it I might just (based on past experience) go on a week long bender, cramming my face with the stuff til I made myself sick and everyone else sick of me, then I reckon I probably wouldn't touch it again. I suspect that if someone had had a couple of experiences with alcohol the same as that but were NOTalcoholics, and it was a problem they didnt want to repeat, then they would probably shrug and decide not to drink again.
An alcoholic though.... He is not going to give in to reason and rational thinking THAT easily. Not on your nelly!. He's going to rationalise (read make excuses for) his drinking. He's going to make a science of risk-assessments around his drinking - changing the who, what, where and when of it for a good while (in my case decades) in a search for the Holy Grail of Moderation.
They might even try some short-term abstinence just to prove that they are NOT alcoholic (I did several months like this). Now I realise that all I proved with these efforts was that, AS an alcoholic, it is the FIRST drink that does the damage. Not the tenth, or the last one.
If there is a problem that is bigger than us, we can waste our lives engaging in combat with it, or concede defeat and learn to live in peace instead.
BB