These debates never end. I find them tedious and irrelevant. No one is going to change anyone's mind and I don't feel like rehashing this argument over and over again is fruitful in any way.

Untreated alcoholics will grasp onto any excuse to keep drinking, whether it be the disease concept or denial, or any myriad of excuses. We must all find what works for us, not find fault with what works or doesn't work for someone else. Although we all share the same affliction, we don't all respond to the same treatment or recovery concept.

If I've learned one thing from alcoholism, it's that as much as I feel like I know, I don't begin to know it all. I only know what works for me.

If we posed this question in the Family and Friends forum, I'm sure we would get much different perspective. After close to a dozen rehabs and hundreds of AA meetings I've discovered that the disease concept will lead me to a bottle. Accountability in recovery is something that many struggle to grasp. The disease concept can get in the way of that.

This is all that matters... Great Post!!!

Whether believing alcohol addiction is a disease helps or hinders your recovery...the criteria required that fit this phenomena into a disease classification simply does not exist.

The reason behind the DSM making that classification was a decision made due to great pressures to find a way that people could get insurance coverage for treatment..classifying alcohol addiction sa a disease was the answer to that as it was when they classified obesity as a disease. The tax paying public isn't that disgruntled for picking up the multi billion dollar tab if they buy the disease model as a medical fact

I think many people in "the real world" don't understand what alcoholism is and what it all entails. Before I learned about this condition, I was very angry at my ex for his behavior towards me, but now that I have a better grasp on what an alcoholic goes through, I now understand that alcoholism isn't all fun and games...(although, it can look that way to an outsider who sees their loved one partying at a bar with all their buddies)

From what I have learned, those who drink alcoholically do so because their bodies process alcohol much differently than a non-alcoholic.
Given this rationale, I see alcoholism as a medical condition.
Whether it's a disease or not almost seems to be a matter of semantics, in my humble opinion...

In any event, I have come to realize that no one ever wakes up one day and says, "Gee, I hope to become a full blown alcoholic someday or develop an eating disorder, etc....)

That thought alone is what renews my compassion for those who battle this addiction.

I do "get" your resentments, though....
And, I hope that by sharing some of my own experience, strength, and hope, you will eventually make peace with those in the real world that continue not to "get" it....

Best wishes,



Linda

Alcoholism is the only disease I can get yelled at for having...

Mitch Hedburg

From my own experience problem is more of a bad choice.Not a disease or mental illness. I think it is a symptom of an underlying problem. I think that is the more effective way of dealing the problem. Just my two cents.Thanks and good luck to everyone.

That is what it is all about! That should be a sticky.

Whatever it's called, if I like it or not, the bottom line is I CANNOT drink alcohol in safety, and haven't in a good number of years.

BE WELL

I know many,many,many people that are in recovery that believe it to be a disease. many years of recovery there and none of em seem disappointed in agreeing tha it is a disease.
then theres the ones that don't believe it is a disease. many years of recovery there,too, and none of em seem disappointed either.

Why are there so many sites that say that alcoholism isnt a disease? Because it is an illness. Type into google " tomatoes are a fruit" and you will have lots of sites saying it isn't because it is a vegetable. However botanically speaking tomatoes are a fruit. Who gives a sh*t either eat them or don't:-)

Any condition that depletes ones life expectancy is a "decease" to me.

Cat1, uncontrollable, cancer etc
Cat2, can be addressed by lifestyle changes (mental issues if not fixed)

The problem of passing off the disease model of alcoholism as truth are the lies that go along to support the greater lie that is preached by addiction professionals as non debatable laws of medical science to their clients and patients. This is solely for

professionals to keep their jobs and not for the benefit of the addicts. Ideas like the the genetic connection to addiction are preached every day to this date. If you see a doctor about addiction he/she will actually ask you if you have any relatives who were addicts. When you say yes as almost all people will..he/she will then say.that's

because addiction is an inherited disease. There is no evidence of a genetic component to addiction to this date yet it's been passed off as a medical fact for many years. Another myth passed off as fact is that alcoholics process alcohol totally differently then non alcoholics even before they have their first drink..this lie is used to support the genetic link lie as in effect support the disease model. It also has zero evidence to support it's premise but is being passed off as medical fact right now as I write this to millions of people by physicians, therapists, and other addiction specialists. There are quite a few other lies that I won't bring up.

The question is if you think lying to patients helps, hinders or doesn't effect their recovery? The benefit of these lies is the insurance coverage...the harmful effects could be countless.

I am interested to know what your view is on heart disease, lung cancer, Type II diabetes, melanoma, just to name a few; because research has shown that these illnesses can greatly reduced if not avoided, by taking proper precautions. Does that mean they don't classify as diseases or illnesses? Watch your diet, don't smoke, exercise regularly, don't be a sun worshiper or at least wear sunscreen. We have all heard these things, does that make us cast judgment on the person who becomes plagued with them? What about the person who dies from the flu? I bet we shouldn't feel bad for them, because they could have just gotten a flu shot.

Just my $.02

Whatever it is it sucks.

I think it is mental illness, but really it doesn't matter in the least. If it is a disease it is the only one I know of that is often "treated" by prayer and having a higher power.

At the end of the day, if calling it a disease helps you to stay sober, then call it that. But no matter what you call it, it is incumbent upon the suffer to stop drinking alcohol. Without that we won't begin to recover.

Yes, however people who have never smoked can get lung cancer. People who eat right and are within the proper BMI range can get diabetes. One does not suffer the harmful effects of alcoholism without drinking alcohol.

The problem with the disease model of addiction is that it leads to misidentifying the cause of continued or active addiction. The cause of addiction is chemical usage, stopping the use of the chemical is the stoppage of the addiction.
That is not to say that medical intervention is not helpful or even necessary to end an addiction. But classifying the choices individuals make as being biologically caused is to deny the efficacy of thinking. And unfortunately ,culturally, we do not place high enough esteem on the efficacy of thinking.
"Doing it on your own" is really the recognition of people using their rational thought processes. Honest introspection is the key to ending an addiction.
People that subscribe to the disease model and follow a program, quit (stop self intoxicating), just as those who decide to stop self intoxicating without a program or strictures based on the idea that quitting is not within their own control.

Is insanity a disease?

IN 2001 I entered a 28 day treatment program heavily based in 12-step recovery and I thought it was all bunk. I made the choice to live on benzos washed down with beer and smoked pot to smooth out the rough edges.

But what that stint in rehab did for me was to recognize that my behavior was insane -- selfish in a narcissistic way, which was hard for me to fathom because I had incredible low self esteem.

Thirty days out of rehab I found a leftover prescription for Klonopin and without thinking popped two. I was drinking three days later, and scoring pot within the month.

I entered rehab to avoid divorce from a woman I loved, a divorce that would separate me from two beautiful daughters that I would have died for. I would have thrown myself in front of a bullet to save my girls, an act that would be unconscious and reflexive.

Knowing I would lose those relationships if I smoked pot or drank beer or popped Klonopin had zero influence on my decision to drink and use again. Zip.

I had no power, despite the motivation inherent in the love I had for my daughters, to avoid using or drinking.

A few months after relapsing, I checked into a second rehab. I was attending a speech from the a MD who was the head of addictive studies from a prestigious southern university medical center. He was also a recovering alcoholic. His talk was on the disease model of addiction. I dressed him down in the question and answer session, telling him that addiction was a choice I made, that it was a moral failing, it was a character weakness that I had a choice to give power or not.

I left that rehab within seven days, went home, rolled a joint and called my shrink, the only guy in the world who understood that I was unique, that my panic and anxiety was a disease that could only be addressed through ever-increasing dosages of Klonopin. And he commiserated with me that my wife just didn't get it, that I would need Klonopin for the rest of my life as the diabetic needs insulin. And washing the Klonopin down with beer made the Klonopin work great. And my shrink saw no harm in smoking a little pot now and then.

I lost my wife, my daughters, home, cars.

Ten years out, I quit my career, bailed out from a high-profile, well-paying job, took a buy out, and opted to drink and drug myself to death. Twelve years out, my possessions fit in two suitcases and two boxes. I had sold or thrown away any possession I had.

I guess those were just bad moral decisions.

When I got sober more than three years ago, I remembered a couple of comments from that MD who responded to my challenges to the disease theory of addiction and alcoholism. He didn't bother going into evidence of how the alcoholic body responds differently to alcohol than that of a normal person, he didn't mention how alcohol and drugs take over the moral centers of a soul, and he didn't even talk about the proverbial rat in the lab who taps a button for a drug and eschews the button that delivers food to the point that the rat overdoses or dies of starvation.

He just cocked an eye my way, and said this: "Bub, in the recovery program that I belong to, the one that taught me I am powerless over alcohol and drugs, the program that identifies the insanity of my trashing a Harvard medical degree and my family and my position in the medical community, we call your type of thinking "mental masturbation.' You're trying to think your way out of this, when what you need to do is surrender.'

And then he said something it took me another decade of active addiction to appreciate: "We can classify addiction as a terminal disease because it fits the criteria of other illnesses like cancer, COPD, heart disease -- because addiction is progressive illness just like the other terminal ailments. You may think you have a choice over alcohol or drugs, but you don't, just as a person doesn't choose to get brain cancer."

I still didn't get it, still didn't buy his BS.

As I headed back to my room in the rehab, he tapped me on the shoulder, smiled at me, and said, "Bub, you are going to lose everything that is dear to you, including family and possessions, just so you can drink and drug. And you don't think that is sick? You will be like me, learning the progressive nature of this beast the hardest way you can. I just hope you bottom out before you die and surrender, admit you are powerless, quit thinking and look to others who were just as messed up as you and were able to crawl back."

I had written in a journal about that conversation 15 years ago, after I lost my family. And I kept digging deeper, quitting my job because it was getting in the way of my drinking and drugging, moving to cheaper and cheaper apartments and selling or throwing away a life time of possessions because they were a hassle, yada yada yada.

I never had the ability to quit on my own. I was forced to quit in a way: I had moved to a third-world country 9,000 miles way from my old home, found out that the government made it illegal to get a prescription for the 300, two-milligram hits of Klonopin I needed to wash down with booze every month, and limited my prescription to 30 pills. I effectively went cold turkey from a 10-year Klonopin habit, needing 20 milligrams a day to get by, to treat my mental diabetes, if you will.

When I woke up in an intensive care unit in four point restraints in a hospital overseas, I accepted three things: Addiction is a progressive thing. And, man, was I sick. And I was also powerless over alcohol and drugs.

I quite beating off my brain. And the term "mental masturbation" aptly defines the internal debate I used to play in my mind before I got sober.

we could call alcoholism a sin
 

CBN.com -- The Bible says that "wine is a mocker, intoxicating drink arouses brawling" (Proverbs 20:1). The Bible also says, "Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk" (Habakkuk 2:15). Yet the Bible does not say that drinking a glass of wine or beer, or a cocktail with dinner, is a sin. Drunkenness is a sin, forbidden by the Bible.

what kind of thinking can be out of the realm of "mental masturbation" or does this term only apply to recovery theory?

what made you realize alcoholism is a progressive disease other then your own situation and health getting worse while you were drinking heavily?