Desiree827

I am so confused LOL

:wtf2

sfgirl

While I do know there are certain camps of researchers who believe that addiction is completely a choice— I have a book by Gene Heyman on my bedside table, in my experience the majority of scientific research I have come across tends towards the disease or biopsychosocial- model. I am not saying which is right or wrong. I am just saying that the addiction is a choice view is definitely a minority position. The NIAAA, NIDA, and the American Medical Association (yes, I'm American ) all classify it as a disease.

ChristopherRuss

FightingIrish

The point is that no one has ever shown that any one group of people metabolise alcohol in different ways to others. Sure, differences in food intake, fatigue, mixing with other substances can make a difference, but at the basic genetic level, we all process alcohol the same way. Even the scientists who want to show that alcoholics are a different group, whose careers rest on it, cannot find evidence to support this.

On the contrary, the best evidence that there is no disease is that people who, it is unanimously agreed, were at rock bottom, drinking litres of vodka a day, then decide they dont fancy it anyomore and stop. This is the story of millions of recovering/recovered people; their brain works in the same way as yours, so this should give you hope.

You raise an important distinction: alcohol makes you WANT more, but it doesnt and cannot make you NEED more. If you choose to drink more, thats your choice. This is true of so many behaviours: once we get a taste we want more. The same is experienced by gamblers, PlayStation gamers, even people who get a dog becasue they liked patting one in the street. We are creatures of greed, we will always want more than we can have and often more than we can handle. But we are also intelligent creatures, meaning we can choose to fight our greed. Or not. To drink or not drink is your choice, and I make no moral judgement about whichever you choose. Just dont pin your hopes on evidence of a physical disease, it doesnt exist. Thats not my ideology, its just what has and has not been made available by research.

Hope this helps my friend.

C

ChristopherRuss

SFgirl

I assume youre referring to "Addiction: A Disorder of Choice".

Yes, these large associations do indeed endorse the disease model. But dont forget, the recovery industry (medication, insurance, treatment programs) is the most profitable business in America - fact. If addiction were a choice, how many people would be out of work? If no one needed pills or therapists, if they could just change their minds, what would the economy look like? The current financial climate would seem like a utopia.

I acknowledge that the withdrawal experience makes it difficult to quit - this is not disputed. But the choice to drink or not drink is never taken from us. Certain triggers in our environment tempt us to drink, enhance our craving. But our choice to drink or not drink is never taken from us. Thats all I wanted to convey.

C

ChristopherRuss

Good night to you all. Ill try to respond to any comments tomorrow (its way past my bedtime in the UK).

Remember, this is just my opinion. Its what works for you that counts.

C

sandrawg

Ok-I missed a lot of the posts in between the first and last. But has anyone responded to Chris by citing the DOZENS and DOZENS of published medical and scientific articles on the physical, measurable nature of addiction in the brain?

For example - "Addiction: BRAIN MECHANISMS and their TREATMENT implications" (note: physical dependence to a drug, including alcohol, results from brain mechanisms that lead to cravings of the drug. You can see this with tests they do on mice, when they administer cocaine.)

Addiction: brain mechanisms and their treatment implications

"The processes of addiction involve alterations in brain function because misused drugs are neuroactive substances that alter brain transmitter function. Then is an impressive and rapidly growing research base that is giving important insights into the neurochemical and molecular actions of drugs of misuse--the processes that are likely to determine such misuse in human beings. Exciting new developments in neuroimaging with both PET (positron emission tomography) and SPELT (single photon emission computed tomography) provide, for the first time, the possibility of testing in human beings theories of drug addiction derived from preclinical studies. Key concepts of addiction are shown in the panel. "

"Drug dependence

Because addiction is an imprecise and potentially pejorative term. the WHO recommended In 1969 that It should be replaced by the term drug dependence. Dependence is a continuous variable; for any Individual Its extent is determined by a range of factors such as amount and frequency of drug use, development of tolerance and withdrawal, inability to abstain, and degree of physical, personal, and social damage. The dependence spectrum thus ranges from simple physical dependence, as for example in some long-term therapeutic-dose benzodiezepine users, to the complete disintegration of personal and social functioning found in end-stage alcoholics and 'hard drug' users. Physical dependence is caused by alterations in brain function that lead to the experiences of withdrawal. Psychological dependence describes repeated drug seeking and taking in the absence of withdrawal. Both can occur independently and contribute differing amounts to dependence on different drugs."

MORE:

Alcohol and Brain

"About 15% of alcoholics experience seizures during withdrawals, and the likelihood of having such seizures, as well as their severity, increases with the number of past withdrawal episodes. The seizures are correlated with shrinkage of both frontal lobes, but it is not known whether the seizures are a cause or an effect of the structural changes."

-Sullivan, E. etal. Alcohol Clinical and Experimental Research, 20, 348-354, 1996

There is SO much research in this area, yet Chris would have us believe that when he searched for evidence on the medical model of addiction, THERE WAS NONE.

Chris, I would like to ask, what is your ulterior motive for attempting to debunk this model?

Personally, I think that what keeps a lot of addicts using is fear of this withdrawal. They stop using for a short while and start to experience the effects (for ex., heroin is a horrible withdrawal), get scared, and give in to the craving yet again. If an addict can withstand the withdrawal long enough, they will get to the other side.

HOWEVER if they do not replace drug-seeking coping mechanisms with healthier ones, like going to therapy to deal with the childhood issues or pains that led them to numb those pains in the first place, they are likely to yet again take that drink or drug again once they are faced with a stressor.

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT a recovering alcoholic; however I dated one for a year. I went to AA for a year regularly. I worked for a research institution that had a drug center that did massive amounts of research on addiction and picked up some things along the way. I am currently in love with an alcoholic who is seeking treatment.

vicarious

My doctor suggested that I check into the emergency department of the hospital where I could be monitored and given medical care. Or go to a detox center.

I did the latter. Eventually. I didn't stop drinking for another year because I wasn't ready to commit to an inpatient rehab facility and the emergency detox at my local hospital (that I had gone through once before when I'd had an acute pancreatitis due to excessive alcohol use) which was like a horror ward.

Frankly, I don't see how you are qualified to be saying that what my doctors were saying was untrue. Certainly there has been enough evidence that strokes and alcohol withdrawal may be linked that studies have been done -- on humans also, not just rats. (Also see the post above or simply google alcohol withdrawal syndrome) I'm not sure why you want to deny real physical addiction -- it doesn't negate whether or not people can still choose to get help for it or not.

FightingIrish

I don't know whether or not there is "proof" that alcoholics metabolize differently or not, but there is plenty of evidence that suggests it.

Like others have said, though, not really sure what you are trying to accomplish with this thread.

Bamboozle

Are you assuming that people here do not have the ability to reason and will project their biases into what it is you might reveal about yourself?

There is only so much any individual can control in life. I worry about what I can control and let go of the rest to the best of my ability.

I'm wondering where you’re coming from on this. I noticed that you listed yourself as a researcher on your profile.

Do you research addiction? If you do, please, oh please pay attention to the role that mood disorders play into addiction…how one influences the other.

I honestly believe that in all of this research, duel-diagnoses often get overlooked. I have a sneaking suspicion that for many folks other disorders play a significant role in addiction and the progression of the addiction.

I’ve had addiction in one form or another ever since I can remember. Food was the first.

LosingmyMisery

In answer to your question, how does it feel, it feels terrific. However, I can not take credit for it. I had help and support. Left to my own will I would most likely be dead. Here is my experience. I was on a 9 day drinking binge. I knew the insanity had to stop. I called for help. I had family and friends and people who knew the program of AA and understood my disease with me at all times. I was not left alone for 5 days as my mind, body and spirit withdrew from the poison. At one point, I called my best friend and begged her to bring me some booze, any booze to get me through the cravings. She burst into tears and declined.

I handed my car keys over because I knew in a weak moment I could not be trusted and knew I would lie, fanaggle and do whatever it took to get alcohol. It did pass, but I did not do it alone. After the alcohol was out of my system I worked a program. I had to learn how to stay sober. Going through the withdrawals was the easy part.

You are mistaken if you think my brain told me to stop more than I wanted to drink, it did not. I wanted that drink and I would have gotten it if I had not been physically stopped by others. I do not believe you fully understand the phenomenon of craving. I don't even know if you are an alcoholic, if you are, you most likely would have experienced this.

I do understand my experience and how I felt. I can not take credit for getting through the first few weeks of my sobriety. I owe it to others. I owe it to a program. If I do not pick up, I have full control. Once I choose to drink, my choice has been taken. I know it, I lived it, I was lucky to survived it.

I have felt like a caged animal pacing back and forth trying to convince another alcoholic all the reasons why I needed a drink as they calmly explained all the reasons I didn't. They fully understood as only an alcoholic could. That is my story and it didn't just fall easily into place. Like I mentioned before, left to my own, I would be either drunk or dead. Today, my faith in the process keeps me sober.

Mattcake

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandrawg

Chris, I would like to ask, what is your ulterior motive for attempting to debunk this model?

I'm not answering this question on Chris' behalf of course, but I do want to add some input.

By using different approaches, many people on this board have achieved sobriety - fulfilling recovery.

However, the statistics for addiction are very scary - this condition, malady, disease, behaviour or whatever you want to call it still kills millions of people.

The current model is obviously NOT working.

Due to personal circumstances, I was all but forced to adopt a progressive perspective to life. And it is extremely frustrating to witness just how much has been achieved in certain areas of human pathology yet, regarding the subject of alcohol addiction, a lot of people (including so-called "specialists") are astoundingly closed-minded.

So, personally, I don't want to "debunk" this model. I'd rather see it progress instead, to a point where it can help *everyone* who suffers from this affliction.

LosingmyMisery

One more thing I would like to add. It is one thing to study alcoholics, alcoholism and why we drink and how we stopped. It is another to live it. I can honestly say that my brain told me I needed more alcohol even though I knew it was killing me. I know that is insane and irrational. Is the choice really mine to make? No, I do not believe so, not when I am in the midst of the compulsion and craving.

McGowdog

Hello to you, Christopher. I have much family out your way. You could be married to a cousin of mine for all I know. My kin is from Leitrim, Ireland.

I am in Alcoholics Anonymous myself, so I'm going to go ahead and disagree with your whole premise... from the get go. I have a book that says, we alcoholics have lost the power of choice in drink. Period.

But now let's go back to your #3. I need to know if you have any real experience in holding a gun to an alcoholic's head and pulling the trigger if they drink. You've done this? And where's your proof that they were a "real" alcoholic of the helpless variety and not just a hard drinker?

My uncle was in his late stages of alcoholism and living/dying in our basement. He was so sick, he was bedridden. He had turned yellow and it took my parents time to get him to the Vets hospital. But in the last week or so, he was too weak to even go to the bathroom. He had a coffee can set up to use. And his room stunk. I'm not going to get into the sicker details of the thing...

But I took my dad aside and asked him how my uncle was still getting vodka to his bedside. I knew he could no longer walk up and down the stairs. My dad said he was getting the booze for my uncle. I asked my dad why. He said because my uncle had a loaded 38 under his pillow and he was going to blow his brains out if he didn't have his booze.

Now that's the truth. It's a real experience. What do you make of it? Not pretty, is it?

It is interesting though, because it's the truth. My uncle wound up dying in a hospital bed at the vet's hospital in Denver Colorado in about 1991 of cirrhosis of the liver.

Now, I'm NOT interested in your opinion of which you know nothing about.

As far as the addicts, IDK. But the alcoholism, I know. Let's read what it says in that Big Book about the "illness of alcoholism (notice I don't say disease); "An illness of this sort, and we have come to believe it an illness-involves those about us in a way that no other human sickness can. If a person has cancer, all are sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt. But not so with the alcoholic illness, for with it there goes annihilation of all the things worth while in life. It engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferer's. It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents-anyone can increase the list."

And yet again, you just did. No problem with that, btw. But I want you to know that alcoholism (and perhaps drug addiction) is at least different than diseases like cancer and such.

If there's a part of A.A. that condones alcoholism as a disease, I disagree with it. I don't think it is nor should it be called a disease. I hate that the word is ever mentioned in the book. It's mentioned by a doctor and also at one time when they call it a "spiritual disease" or something like that.

The book that I do steps out of doesn't say I'm sick. It says that my troubles are of my own making and they arise out of self. And that is a great statement of hope. It separates me from the terminally ill patient.

In the 3rd Step, I've come to terms that any life based on self will can hardly be a success. So the root of my troubles are within me. And so is the Solution... the fundamental idea of God.

But that's the A.A. program as we work it in my neck of the woods.

vicarious

One thing I should have added to my posts is that the alcohol withdrawal symptoms I was talking about don't occur in every case, only in severe instances when an alcoholic is highly dependent on the drug. The appropriate thing to do, if one is deciding to quit drinking is to consult their physician. I know most people won't do this out of shame, but the least a person can do is consult alcohol withdrawal symptoms to do a basic assessment of their risk for more severe reactions.

I didn't mean to imply that anyone quitting drinking would be likely to have a stroke or heart attack. I don't think anyone took my meaning to say that (except perhaps, the author of this thread for the purpose of discrediting my argument), but I wanted to make that clear.

hendershot

Chris:
There are sheds of legitimate arguments being made in your original post but their is more BS in there. I disagree with some of your basic premises but generally you argue this poorly. This is not to say that you couldn't be right in principle, just that you don't pick your battles wisely.
1)You are conflating the difference between first drink and addiction--there is choice involved, however you aren't chosing to be addicted. Poor decisions are a part of the deal but at some point you are no longer choosing--the manifestation of disease, the craving, is not a choice.
2)Millions of people quit easily. Ok this is too vague and general but assuming you are correct--not everyone is considered to be an addict just because they abuse drugs. Further, the idea of "easily" is not really defined and leads to different conceptions of what exactly is easy.
3)The gun example--fallacious non-sequiter here, just because you pull a gun on someone and tell them "stop using or I kill you" and they stop, does not illustrate that they are not addicts or do not have a disease. All you are showing is that death is a sufficient motivator to quit, nothing about the legitimacy of the disease (by the way many people do die from this disease even after knowing that is where they will end up)
4)this point is riddled with generalizations about the disease theory falling out of favor and people who endorse it doing so for their own self-interests. Again, this says nothing about the legitimacy of the theory itself and you do not back up that even your assertions are true.
5)Here you are conflating addiction with pharmology or mental mechanisms that would force someone to use a drug. Nobody is claiming, that I am aware of, that people are "forced" to use drugs, just their ability to fight urges becomes very difficult, not impossible. No human action can be viewed as inevitable or forced as long as you are espousing a "free-will" philosophy.
6)This is an interesting point, responsibility vs. disease, but it is a false choice. You can have a disease and be responsible for treating it. If you have cancer, you are responsible for showing up to your doctor's apointment on time, for considering treatment options, for going into your surgery/kemo/whatever, etc. False dillema.
7)I am not a doctor, so I do not know about the classification of disease but I once heard a doctor speak who explained that the biological change is in the brain functioning, in the area that manages stress. They can see this in brain imaging tests but this stuff in its infancy so not as provable as say cancerous cells under the microscope. But just because we don't fully understand the brain does not mean that the disease model is false--argument from ignorance fallacy.
8)see #7
9)I see your point here but I disagree that human behavior is "reasoned" and not "reflexive." But this is a point of intelligent disagreement, and I think that even if you are right, there is nothing in the disease model that says that addicts have no responsibility or choice.
10)repeating yourself, I am not a doctor, I don't care if it is technically a disease or not based on a list of criteria--does it function like one anyway? you say no I think.
11)repeating yourself, the latin point is etymological and not pertinent AT ALL. You say people stop taking drugs due to reason, so that reason must be the source of addiction--making a choice to use drugs--so addiction is not a disease. Could it not be a combination of these things? I mean a reason-reflex interplay, wherein both reason and addiction are influences in our pshyche? Why does it have to be one or the other? Couldn't the motivator to stop also be reflexive. I mean, say the example where you are being held at gunpoint and told to stop or you will die--is it a rational response "hey I better stop or I will die" or is it an emoitonal response like fear that makes you stop? Or could it be both? This is not as clear cut as you present it.

sfgirl

well said.

spittake

You talked in your first post of brain plasticity. I assume you are speaking of the many studies that have demonstrated how prolonged drug use alters the functioning of the brain. Does that not indicate a pharmacological component in addiction? I find the term "pharmacological" to be implicative of therapeutic medication, so I am going to use the term "neurologic" from now on.

You concede that researchers have employed fMRI to study how the neurologic functioning in a drug-addicted brain differs from that of a normal brain. Then you go on to argue that this does nothing to support a "disease" model because it does not address the initial ingestion of the substance. The "disease" model is primarily concerned with the continuance of addiction, which is swiftly being empirically accounted for.

I believe the emergent field of cognitive neuroscience is going to convincingly theorize the neurologic bases for most of our decision-making and thinking and emoting, etc. As others have said, merely understanding the mechanisms doesn't necessarily relieve us of our responsibility for our actions. If that's what you are driving at, then I agree with you.

However, I think the research being done on addicted brains is helping us to understand why the continuance of an addiction defies all reason. It also enables the development of pharmacological treatments for addiction. I can self-report as to the promise of such an enterprise.

That is the extent to which I lend credence to the "disease" model.

Timebuster

From The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney.

The Death of an Alcoholic

My friend Robert died the other day. He died alone in a hotel room and his body wasn't found for two days. He weighed 125 pounds when he died.

Robert was an alcoholic who couldn't stay sober. He had been through full thirty day (and longer) treatment programs at least 15 times. He had been in detox fifty times easily. Drinking had destroyed his body. Robert should have been dead years ago. In the past 3 or 4 years almost every time he drank he ended up in intensive care. I did much of my grieving for my friend three years ago, the last time I rescued him from his cabin on Taos Mountain and took him to the emergency room.

Robert went to lots of meetings and tried real hard to work the program but on one critical point he didn't have enough humility. He did not have enough humility to accept that he was lovable.

My friend had made and lost fortunes in his life. He had been with lots of women and had lots of possessions. He still had lots of possessions when he died. He still had the cabin in Taos Ski Valley but he didn't have the strength to walk up the fifty steps to the front door.

Robert used money to try to buy friendship and love. And then he felt betrayed because he believed that people only wanted to be around him for his money. If you were friendly to him for no apparent reason, then he would talk about giving you money because that gave you an excuse to care about him. He just could not believe that he was worthy of love just for who he was.

Robert was full of shame. He was full of shame because he was raised in a dysfunctional family in a shame-based society. His Father was a verbally/emotionally abusive perfectionist for whom nothing was ever good enough. His mother was too terrified and shame-based to protect her son.

As a young child Robert got the message that he wasn't lovable but that if he was successful enough and made enough money he might earn the right to be loved. He was successful and made lots of money but it did not work to convince him that he was good enough.

My friend had no permission from himself to receive love. When I published my book I listed him among people who had touched my life on the Acknowledgements Page. When he saw his name listed there he cursed me (his generation, and mine, were taught to relate to other men that way, to say 'I love you' by calling each other names) and cried briefly (which he felt was very shameful) and then he drank. In his relationship with himself Robert was too shame-based to believe that he was lovable.

I believe that the great majority of Alcoholics are born with a genetic, hereditary predisposition that is physiological. Environment does not cause Alcoholism. Robert was not an Alcoholic because he was shame-based - it was because of his shame that he could not stay sober. He had a blustery, 'hail-fellow-well-met', in your face kind of ego-strength that was very fragile. As soon as he got sober his ego defenses would fracture and the shame underneath would cause him to sabotage his sobriety.

That doesn't mean that people who can stay sober don't have shame. Some of us just have more ego defenses that buries the shame deeper. That is good news in early sobriety because it helps one to stay sober. It can be bad news later on because it can cause us to resist growth and to not have the humility to be teachable. The reason that I am alive today is because I was able to go to treatment for Codependence in my fifth year of recovery while working as a therapist in a treatment center. I had sworn that I would kill myself before I drank again and the feelings which were surfacing had me close to it when I went to Sierra Tucson. That was where I met Robert.

What killed my friend were the grave emotional and mental disorders caused by growing up with parents who did not love themselves in a dysfunctional family in an emotionally-dishonest, Spiritually-hostile, shame-based society. What killed Robert was his Codependence. His relationship with himself was full of self-hatred and shame and he couldn't stay sober long enough to get to the point where he could deal with his childhood issues.

Robert was born with a genetic predisposition to have a fatal disease, Alcoholism. His childhood inflicted a second fatal disease on him. My friend Robert was one more of the many Alcoholics to die of Codependence.

"This compulsive nature of an alcoholic's reaction to alcohol is marked by the dynamic that once the substance is introduced to an alcoholic's body it can set off a craving for more. That means that once in a while, once a week/month/whatever, an alcoholic starts drinking with the intention of having two beers and ends up drinking themselves into passing out. This is a form of Russian Roulette that an alcoholic plays. They may be able to control their drinking 90 % of the time, but they can never be sure when that compulsive craving will take control - when that happens they are liable to wake up in strange places not having any idea what happened or how they got there or rather they killed someone on the freeway the night before.

Some alcoholics go months or even years between binges. Some of the most miserable people on this planet are dry alcoholics - that is, alcoholics who are not drinking using will power, but are really miserable because of it."

If alcohol were suddenly no longer available, people would find some substitute - because the great majority of people on the planet do not know how to live. If you took away all of the substances and agents that people use to numb themselves so that they can endure life, the world would deteriorate in violence and chaos as all the repressed emotional energy exploded to the surface.

1. Why would alcoholism be considered an addiction to you?

I personally would consider alcoholism an addiction because when I was drinking it was in reaction to some deeply held belief that it was not possible to live life without alcohol and drugs. Which means I had a compulsive psychological dependence on alcohol and drugs. I also had a compulsive physiological dependence on alcohol due to genetic factors. An alcoholic is born with a hereditary, genetic predisposition to addiction having to do with brain chemistry. The factors that go into that brain chemistry dynamic dictate that alcoholism is a progressive condition - which means the way the alcoholic reacts to and processes alcohol in his system changes and degenerates over time.

I believe that alcoholism is incurable - and that if I were to go back to drinking after almost 16 and 1/2 years without a drink, my physiological reaction to alcohol would be worse than it was when I quit because of the progressive nature of the brain chemistry components of the disease.

There are different varieties of alcoholics. Some are daily, maintenance drinkers - who may drink a little (or a lot) every day whereas some alcoholics go long periods of time between drinks. Some alcoholics drink just enough to "take the edge off" and may never appear drunk or have any overtly negative consequences (i.e. drunk driving, losing jobs, etc.) The consequences they suffer are emotional and spiritual, so do not often show on the surface.

One of the major indicators that a person is an alcoholic in my opinion, is that when they decide they are not alcoholic they have a drink to celebrate. Some one who is not an alcoholic has no compelling reason to drink - and most non alcoholics do not ever have to wonder if they are alcoholic.

I believe that many people may have a period where they have abused alcohol in their lives - like late teens, early twenties - which does not necessarily make them alcoholic. It is the history of drinking over years that is indicative of alcoholism. It is the compulsive nature of the drinking that marks it as an addiction.

2. Why would alcoholism be considered a disease to you?

I believe that a disease is a disturbance in a natural process - literally dis-ease, a lack of ease, of harmony.

In terms of alcoholism, the first time that anyone ever came up with a way of successfully treating alcoholism was when Alcoholics Anonymous was founded and started treating alcoholism as a disease rather than a moral problem or character flaw. Using the disease model of treating alcoholism brought relief and a new life to millions of alcoholics long before the AMA decided to classify Alcoholism as a disease in the late 60s. Since that time there have been a wealth of scientific studies proving that there are genetic and hereditary components of alcoholism.

I also believe that the physical components of alcoholism are not the most important factors in this disease. I believe that it is an emotional, mental, and spiritual disease with physiological components. Just treating the physical components is not enough to allow an alcoholic to lead a happy, relaxed life. It is vitally important in my view to treat the emotional, mental, and spiritual components as well.

I also personally believe that all physical disease is a product of emotional, mental, and spiritual dis-harmony. And further that emotional and mental disease is a result of Spiritual dis-harmony and dis-connection. In my belief this includes hereditary and genetically transmitted diseases - including alcoholism, which I believe are the product of many generations of Spiritual dis-harmony and dis-connection.

1stDay

I just read this entire thread, and something ChristopherRuss said has me wondering.....

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
Because after 15 years of being sober, (thanks to AA a little, Grace of God alot...) I started drinking again.

I can pinpoint all the things that were going on in my life at the time I started drinking again. My 24 year long marraige going wrong, a close cousins suicide, my separation from my husband, my brothers suicide, my divorce, relocating, new job, feeling alone.

So are you saying that if I somehow addressed those issues (and I thought I had) that I wouldn't be having the relationship with Bud Light that I am having right now? I'm not being sarcastic, I'm being serious. This is a new concept for me.

Like a root cause. Something I could get a handle on, like a pesty plant that you wanted to die, just get the darn roots out and problem solved.

Because from where I'm sitting right now, that plant is taking over my whole life, and "choice" doesn't seem to be in the equation. No offense meant, just asking questions, Sherry

matt88

CRuss - Sorry for hostile reactions. I don't see what the big deal is. I agree with just about everything your original post stated, and have said or thought most all of those things myself at some point.

I've never really thought alcoholism was a disease myself. When I was in rehab I even told the doctors there that I didn't agree that alcoholism was a disease. I thought alcoholism could cause disease, and was a primary risk factor for certain diseases, but wasn't a disease in and of itself. To me, alcoholism is an addiction that can lead to physical diseases.

The only way I've been able to convince myself that alcholism is a disease is in an etymological way by saying "dis" "ease" strictly means "not at ease". So in that sense, yes, but I don't think that's what people mean when they discuss alcoholism being a disease - alot of people want to point at something, real or imagined, beyond their control where they can play victim.

I always chose to drink, no one forced me to drink. And when I've abstained, I've chosen to do that also.