ChristopherRuss

Thank you

This point you make is correct and is precisely the reason why it is not a disease - because the antidote is often to solve our problems-in-living. Most people find that when they address the issues that started them drinking in the first place, drinking stops. This has nothing to do with your brain.

I hope you find this useful.

C

Ago

You may find it helpful to read HB3's thread

We find WHO says things perhaps the most important thing of ALL, I am not going to listen to the advice of someone who can't quit drinking but I will pay VERY close attention to someone who has RECOVERED from alcoholism.

Where I am from, another way to put sharing outside your experience is called "talking out of your @ss" because it has absolutely no credibility whatsoever, whereas if you were a Doctor, worked in the field of addiction, or were a RECOVERED alcoholic you would at least have some credibility, it wouldn't mean you were right, but i would at least pay attention.

ChristopherRuss

Thank you Vicarious

First let me say that I thought the last part of your post was beautifully written and sums up a lot of what I believe. That you decided to address the issues that led you to drink and stopped/controlled your drinking as a result is all the evidence you should need that this problem-solving was all that you needed to stop. As I said, people take drugs for reasons; drug taking is not caused. When drinking stops making sense to you, you stop drinking. To make sense means you have thought about it; your brain doesnt think, it just 'does'.

As to your other point, if drinking was a disease it would be the only disease in the world for which doing nothing would cure you. Diseases such as cancer, Parkinsons, hay fever etc require a medical antidote - you cannot think your way out of them. But if all alcohol disappeared off the planet tomorrow no one would die - put an alcoholic in a room with no alcohol and they wil not only not die, they will get better. If you have been told that not drinking after a certain point can give you a stroke, Im afraid youve been misinformed. Its more likely that the strokes you speak of are panic or stress induced, or caused by the damage already done by alcohol. But not drinking cannot kill you.

Last point, that youre physician says something is not scientific prood of anything. There are millions of other doctors who say you're doctor is wrong for saying addiction is a disease (I myself may be a doctor). Doctos on both side of the argument can be wrong which is why its best read from both sides of the argument.

My best wishes to you Vicarious

C

Zencat

First off I'd like to say welcome ChristopherRuss to SoberRecovery.com the forums.

Well this is a "hot topic" for sure . I for one follow the biopsychosocial model of addiction. It work's for me. But the real depths of my concern focus on treating my condition. And seeing there are great variety of methods to treat addiction...I sought one that works for me. I have gone past the wonderment of the causation of addiction other than to find a model of addiction that explains it to me...an explanation that makes the most sense...to me. Otherwise addiction causation makes a great topic to discuss in a formal way...but again I'm beyond that point.

shaun00

Any room on the blackberry trip mark?...

i remember feeling alot of relief after i abandoned my quest to find out why i drank like i did and why i was a alcoholic..

turning to science baffled me.........turning to god released me...

shaun.

spicedT84

I pray that you never have to suffer from true alcoholism, god forbid you ever do, I wouldn't wish this DISEASE/ILLNESS on my worst enemy, but, having typed that you may one day suffer and look back on this topic with a very sad frown at how idiotic your post is, would you say that to someone with a brain tumor? No!

ChristopherRuss

Thank you Ago

Remember that whe talking about addiction, physicians and certified therapists are only quoting what they have been told in their manuals and have read in other sources. Very rarely have they been involved in research and they are solely concerned with weighing up what other people have said. This is what I have done here. If I was a doctor (and Im not saying that Im not) I would still only be para-phrasing other people.

A minor but major point: you say that "someone who can't quit drinking but I will pay VERY close attention to someone who has RECOVERED from alcoholism". Here you swich from "cant" as in "unable" to "has" as in "did do something". My point is that we dont have evidence that peope cannot stop, only evidence that they do not stop. Everyone is able to stop.

I appreciate your alternative point of view to mine Ago and Im more than happy to talk about any other issues you have with my point. At the end of the day, whatever works for you is fine with me.

C

ChristopherRuss

Thank you Zencat and Trucker

Like i say, I appreciate that people have different points of view. The most important thing is that you both find things that work for you, and it sounds like you both have and that pleases me more anything.

My best wishes to you both,

C

Pinkcuda

Chris, alcoholism is not about whether we drink or not. It is simply the ability or the inability to control the intake once started.
An alcoholic can not control the amount he drinks and has never been able to.
As far as quitting on will power alone, it happens all the time.
Come back when you've figured out a way to control it and we'll talk.

Ago

Who is this "we" you speak of?

Certainly not those of us with actual experience with alcoholism and the recovery thereof.

Show me this evidence

Prove this to me beyond the shadow of a doubt. Cite your sources. Make sure to include "everyone" in the thesis and results

Texasblind

In answer to your number 3 question: If someone was holding a gun to my head while I was in active addiction? I gladly would've taken the trigger.

spicedT84

No-one recovers from alcoholism, it's an illness, you have to surrender then learn to cope with the illness, perhaps you should go to XA speakers website and listen to Bob D to get the bigger picture.

ChristopherRuss

Thank you spicedT84

you raise two interesting points. First I never said that I havent recovered from alcoholism, am still an alcoholic, or have never drunk a day in my life.

Second, would I say that to someone with a brain tumour? A brain tumour is the involuntary growth of a physical structure. It does not think to be cancerous, it does not think to kill us, it just does.By and large, there is not much we can do to avoid getting cancer. It emerges from defects in our genes, and we can track it back to here. There are no reasons to have cancer, but there are reasons to drink. Put it like this: if you never had your first drink you could never die of alcoholism. You had a choice to drink or not drink. The case is the same today and it will be tomorrow: drink or dont drink? Cancer doesnt care what we think, it happens anyway. Drinking cant kill us without our say so. It just depends on what we say and you can say what you want.

So no, I would not say to the person with a brain tumour that he had a choice - he didnt. But unlike with cancer patients, nothing in our bodies MAKES us pour glasses of drink or walk to the shops. We give the say so to these actions, we think about them then we do them. Our brains dont do them for us.

Hope this is useful to you

C

vegibean

While people will assume that we can control it, I'm still baffled how people can get one drink, have half of it and switch to a soda or water. To me, that makes no sense.........hmmmm.

laurie6781

Love and hugs,

yeahgr8

Dis-ease
1. A pathological condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.
2. A condition or tendency, as of society, regarded as abnormal and harmful.

I think it depends where you source the definition, but forgetting all that!

Definitely for all of us here it is life or death scenario and there is no way anyone can take their alcoholism/addicition too seriously, as most of us have learned the hard way!

I understand the choice thing, i would choose not to drink every morning, so much so that i would ring a friend and swear off drink in a logical and clear manner, then be pissed by 6pm!

But it's so much more than that! It just doesn't feel like a choice, even if there was the most credible person standing in front of me, maybe you are, telling me that is all it has ever been, i couldn't truly believe that is all it was...i mean how could anyone who has been through this?

Anyways it's certainly made me interested in reading this thread tonight, we have threads like are alcoholics born alcoholics, with lots of different points of view, so why not is it a choice or not?!

I'll close my part by saying that i am in AA and very happy, i do believe in God and i do believe that he wants me to be happy and to help other people. I do believe that working the steps will give me a new life. I love going to meetings and love to be with people that are like me. I guess i have made the choice to be sober, but i know before that choice would have only lasted till about 4pm before, so it's a bit of a miracle for me:-)

cheers

cliff

Mattcake

Interesting thread.

I agree with some of the points you're making. The disease model of alcoholism seems to be very flawed - for example, check out White, W. (2000) "Addiction as a Disease". A lot of research and work is being devoted to change this situation, however, doing so is very challenging, as the current paradigm is deeply entrenched - mostly due to the medical community's endorsement. I fail to understand why alcoholism has the dubious luxury of being granted the "disease" label, while other addictive behaviours such as smoking nicotine, drug use etc are brushed off as "bad habits".

Having said that, the disease conception is a model: it's an approximation, an attempt to make sense of a very destructive behaviour that - I agree with you- is initially brought about by choice. In that sense, it seems to work, though there's obviously room for improvement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChristopherRuss

This point you make is correct and is precisely the reason why it is not a disease - because the antidote is often to solve our problems-in-living. Most people find that when they address the issues that started them drinking in the first place, drinking stops. This has nothing to do with your brain

This is a tricky affirmation. So far, it has been proved to be wrong; for example, psychoanalysis has failed miserably in this respect. The current understanding is that the addictive behaviour must be halted before the underlying issues can be properly addressed; the reverse does not seem to work.

It's also very important to identify these underlying issues accurately. I think that this is the single most important aspect of treating addiction, yet it's usually ignored.
Like AA claims, alcohol abuse might sometimes be a symptom of leading a purposeless life, lacking in spirituality and meaning. However, this is not always the case. People who have a highly developed sense of spirituality can become addicted to alcohol. On the same token, many people simply choose to forgo spirituality altogether, without becoming addicted to drugs.

For some people, it's not about god. Situations such as emotional trauma, psychological and cognitive issues (irrational beliefs etc), social in-adaptation, cultural conditioning among many others are all too often neglected and disregarded... with catastrophic results. But hopefully, overall, we're slowly moving forward

ChristopherRuss

To Pinkcuda

I know you may have been exposed to nothing but the "addiction is a disease" account in AA and other 12-step programs. But its just not true that no one is able to quit, and Im sure youre fellow sufferers would not like to you here your damning verdict that they are all doomed. No one is; if you want to be dead in 6 months, you will be. If you want to be sober in 6 months you will be. People recover all the time and these people are not blessed with unique abilities. They will have as many horror stories as you and will have shared space on the bottom of the barrel for a similar length of time. But they changed something. Not their brain. They changed their mind about drinking, they just didnt fancy it anymore, found something more important to do, or solved some problem that had made drinking appealing in the first place.

Everyone is able to control their drinking. Its hard, I know, but most important things in life are difficult. It is never impossible, no matter how far gone you think you are. And all the tools you need you have already.

Best wishes

C

Mark75

Christopher, you seem like a smart, decent individual whose intentions may or may not be honorable. It is getting hard to tell.

Nothing you've said, or anything you are about to say, has been useful to me. Sorry... If you want to understand alcoholism, get your head out of the science books, put a muzzle on and listen..... listen.... to the voices of people who know what alcoholism is... people who are trying to recover or have recovered... some have lost everything.... ask them, don't tell them... then.... listen

Mark

ChristopherRuss

Thanks Mark

Ill take your points on board. Its interesting that you assume that I dont interact with alcoholics daily. Its also interesting that "anything that Im about to say" will be of use to you. If we all had your powers of foresight.

At the end of the day, whatever works for you my friend.

C