I'm writing from the other side of the fence, not a Friends and Family, but an ex alcoholic. I haven't had a drink since the moment I decided I would quit, and that was over seven years ago. I never will again have any alcohol either.
I don't believe I had a disease, I had an addiction. The addiction had many seriously bad effects on my life - it messed up my mental and physical health, it damaged relationships, it affected my ability to make decisions. But those things are gone now, permanently, along with my dependence on alcohol.
Believing I didn't have an incurable disease was an important part of my permanent recovery from alcoholism. If I had believed I had this incurable disease, I would never find my self as I do today - free, happy and living a full life with all of that crap firmly and permanently in my past. I'm not afraid of alcohol, I can't get triggered and I don't restrict my activities in order to avoid alcohol. I simply don't drink any.
And the AMA made its disease declaration due to the lobbying by Marty Mann, an AA member and proponent, and R. Brinkley Smithers who owned and operated rehab centres. The effect of this AMA declaration was to free health insurance dollars so that they could be applied to rehab. Smithers was launching a treatment program while at the same time lobbying for insurance money.
Maybe the concept of addiction as disease is helpful to some, it just was never going to help me. It was by refusing to see myself as helpless and incurable that I was able to regain some agency and self determination. Once those were in place, I was able to make that vow of permanent abstinence.