wiscsober

Just stop drinking if you think it is stupid or a disease....it seems to be ruining your life....and you are arguing a century old argument yes it is classified as a disease back to 1930...the argument is denial....call it stupidity...an illness...a disease....whatever

wiscsober

Talana...I've personally watched two people die of their stupidity in the last week do you think it mattered to their kids their fathers were dumb?

Dee74

This is always an issue that brings out some emotion.
Sincerely held beliefs are important to people, and I get that.

As I alluded to in my first post, tho, do we have to strive for one right answer?

Its tragic when alcoholics die...but they don't die from the debate between disease and choice surely?

they die from alcoholism.

D

DarkDays

I do not really believe it to be a disease , as much as smoking and taking other drugs are not labelled this way. But saying that many say it is and fair play to them, at the end of the day it's pouring a drug down ones throat disease or not a disease.

hypochondriac

I love this debate. I think it doesn't need to be answered in order to do anything about your drinking problem but it does seem to have a bearing on the way it is treated. If you believe solely in the physiological aspects of addiction, ie addictive substances, addicted mind, tolerance, then you are more likely to think treatment with drugs (naltrexone, campral) is the route out of addiction. I am not sure how this ties in with AA because although AA is usually the group criticised for believing in the 'disease model' of addiction that belief doesn't seem to have any bearing on their 'spiritual solution'. I lean more toward the behavioural model myself, but perhaps that is just down to my chosen methods in recovery which tend to lean towards changing conditioned responses and re programming my thinking patterns. I think this is an area which is more multi faceted than most theories seem to allow though. Why can't it be part genetic, behavioural, moral, cultural, and physical? I think this need to put things in boxes (I think it's the human disease ) can be very damaging to people who don't seem to fit into any box. What ever the cause the result is the same (drink too much) as is the solution (stop drinking). The way people get there may differ and they may have different reasons and motivations but that is true of everything. It isn't any of our business to pass judgement on other people's recovery. Clean up our own side of the street as they say x

wiscsober

WHATEVER...i'm just very sad for people who don't think alcoholism and addiction are diseases......stay in denial...more people are agreeable about gum disease

MadameX

Whatever train of thought keeps your sober I guess. I know i am sober because I chose not to drink anymore not because some miracle cured my "disease" IT was my will and my choice.

Talana

Everyone has their own opinion...everyone should go with what works for them.

Michael66

Maybe there is a progression over time from choice --> habit --> addiction --> disease

Talana

Good point Michael.

caboblanco

A survey done for physicians concluded that 80% did not believe alcoholism to be a disease.

The people that brought forth the idea that alcoholism is a disease already had their mind made up before they proved their point

Cormat

Personally I see it more as a form of 'cancer' than a traditional disease such as typhoid or similar. Its something inside of me that has gone wrong rather than being something I can catch. So I can only hope to have my malady put into remission rather than ever being free of it.

I struggled with this whole powerlessness thing as well for a long while because nobody ever had to hold me down to pour a drink down my throat. But what did eventually did hit me was this.

I had full control over the glass, tin or bottle that my first drink of the day was contained in. I could make a choice over that. But once that alcohol went into my system then that was it. I could not guarantee how much I would then drink. So AA message of simply not picking up the first drink, just for today, made perfect sense to me. Avoid that one and the rest aint an issue.

But drinking is not the problem. It is my thinking. Alcohol makes the thinking worse but ultimately the 'disease' is centered in the mind, not in a physical manifestation.

And I know that it is an illness, at least for me. And a spiritual one. Now I cannot comment on what it might be for others but I am not well and am unable to make myself better. Much like anybody who goes along to a hospital or visits their Doctor for physical problems. I am in AA because I have a spiritual disease and it offers me a recovery programme. Nothing more complex than that.

Fandy

I don't agree that it is a disease, I'm certainly not in "denial" about the addiction (I used to smoke too) but I think in order to get medical treatment under your insurance, to classify it as such is good....better to get professional help with a doctor and counseling.

I think what bothers me most is when people try to hide their bad behavior under this label..."oh I stole, slapped, spit, acted like an idiot BECAUSE I'm an alcoholic, that's the reason and I should be excused...it's my *disease* that makes me act this way"

I've done plenty of dumb things when I was drinking....but I own them, my family and friends have fogiven me...it took a bit longer to forgive myself and move on from them, and it is another reason to not go backwards.

Cormat

I cannot recollect many people I know in AA using the disease as an excuse. Its more about perhaps understanding the reason why you acted in the manner that you did and then setting about making amends.

One of the reasons that I ended up in AA was because I was aghast at how I was behaving in one particular area of my life. It was a genuine puzzle to me because I knew it was wrong and yet I was powerless to stop it.

But I am having to try and clear up the wreckage now. I dont want anybody to excuse me for how I behave. If they can at least try and understand a little, then it helps me out no end but for me recovery is essentially about wanting to live with integrity and understanding why that was so problematic in the past.

fini

i quite like the word "condition" or "disorder".
none of these, nor disease for that matter, implies that you cannot do anything about it.

but what really helped me was to sit with the conviction that it was my choice to drink. to sit with that both while drinking and for a long time after i got sober. to then go from there to the next logical question: if it was entirely my choice to drink, and after hundreds of times choosing and deciding NOT to anymore, then i did it again because i chose to, then what the hell was wrong with me that i kept making such stuuuupid choices over and over again when i'm not stupid like that in other areas of my life?

sitting with that for a long time , i came to some conclusions i didn't particularly like, and a different view.

so...why would Talana have made such stupid choices when she could simply have chosen otherwise?
or maybe you did chose otherwise, but then....then somehow stupidity took over again?

not making fun of you; just that asking myself and grappling with those questions was useful to me, and maybe it might be for you, too.

skg

Good question. I went to a dictionary for a definition and, having done so, am even more convinced that it is a disease that, if left untreated over time, gets progressively worse, never better.
In the prefixes of his "Doctor's Opinion," Dr. William Silkworth took a bold stance in identifying alcoholism as a disease, as well as providing a definition. "We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker." pp. xxviii, Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Ed.
This business of an allergy that manifests as a mental obsession was new back in the day, and there are a list of characteristics associated with the disease. Worth a read...

Threshold

I am an addict first, alcoholic later. Meaning that I didn't become an alcoholic because I drank too much for too long and got physically addicted. I was never physically addicted to alcohol. I drank because I am an addict, which means I compulsively reach for things outside myself and certain behaviors to avoid dealing with my feelings and things in life that make me uncomfortable.

That is an emotional/mental disorder. Stopping drinking eliminated a few issues in my life, but I just reached for others self destructive substances and behaviors trying to meet the same ends.

So, for me alcohol abuse, drug abuse, anorexia etc etc were symptoms of a serious emotional/mental disorder.

I don't use the word disease, I use the word addiction because it's pretty clear, people know what I am talking about and no one can look at my history and behavior and argue that I am an addict.

I can't know how others became alcoholics etc etc. I DO know that there are particular genetic conditions (some have to do with the way carbs are processed/broken down) that make some people more susceptable to alcohol addiction. I don't think that is MY issue, but it has been proven that it IS a factor in many people's situation.

I do think that for some people it is undeniably a disease. Luckily, it is one we can seek treatment for and manage.

ru12

If alcoholism is a disease so is smoking and every other destructive behavioral habit. Personally I don't give much weight to the OPINION of a Dr. rendered in the 1930's. I do think the good Dr. made the best guess he could with the evidence available to him at the time. But no matter what alcoholism rely is, it is serious, progressive and often deadly and is best dealt with ( more of my opinion) with abstinence.

ElegantlyWasted

I'm just having fun with semantics here...

Disease (n)
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.

Genetic Defect and Environmental stress go part and parcel with addiction, it is a pathological condition and there are identifiable sings and symptoms.

The good thing is that addiction can be so much more effectively treated today than even 15 years ago. The addict though has to want it, its not like an antibiotic for a bacterial infection. You need to hit both physical and psychological aspects of this stuff. Just my line of thinking.

The addict is had wired and environmentally to rationalize continued use, so some will use the term "disease" to justify continued use. I think that's why most problemed drinkers need some kind of bottom or inflection point where the reasons to quit outnumber the reasons why.

jaybee1

In my mind it is disease because of its genetic nature. There's at least a drunk in every generation in my family it seems...

Also, seems to go hand in hand with mental illness, so I've often thought of alcoholism as a symptom of a disease.

Whatever you call it, one thing is for sure that it's destructive....