freshstart57

Less than 30% of American doctors are members of the AMA. The AMA is a corporation in the business of selling and protecting its income stream, and does not speak for doctors. The AMA is a not a medical body, more information is available. The AMA has been found guilty THREE TIMES for antitrust violations for conspiracy and restraint of trade. The AMA has accepted advertising from the food and tobacco industries and received payments for its endorsement. The AMA paid Sunbeam corp $10M to avoid breach of contract litigation surrounding its endorsement of Sunbeam products that were never tested.

The AMA proclamations and endorsements have no empirical validity.

Sorensen

I am pleased to see so much discussion on a thread I started

DoubleBarrel

If you don't believe that alcoholism is a disease then I suggest you strongly argue that diabetes isn't either.

Both are dependent on what you put in your own body, and much control is on the person with the disease, until it runs rampant, at which point, the pathology of it runs a predictable and repeatable course.

Both can be treated with diet, exercise and medications, and both have a genetic predisposition.

Alcoholism is surely a disease, and that is widely accepted medical fact.

How it started (free will to an extent) does not change the diagnosis once the victim becomes addicted.

There is no doubt that alcoholism is a disease, however, I do not believe that in any way assuages each individual responsible for maintaining sobriety any more than diabetics need watch and maintain a healthy blood sugar.

matt4x4

The American Medical Assosication says its a disease.

MemphisBlues

I ain't got no dog in this fight, kids.

I am only sharing my experience. I vehemently opposed the disease model of addiction 15 years ago. I wasn't an alcoholic -- just somebody who liked to drink (which is sort of funny because I hated drinking as a kid, preferring the hipper and cooler pot and its Super Daddy, LSD).

I had three shrinks over a span of 25 years telling me I needed benzos to live, and believe me, I hold little love for the APA or AMA.

My experience with alcohol is that it progressed to the point where I was a stumbling, drooling drunk at night, and a shakey, hungover drunk in the morning. My alcoholism PROGRESSED over 20 years, meaning I drank more and in spite of ever-increasing detrimental consequences. And I was internally grateful that I had doctors willing to buy my sob story and increase my dosages of benzos to a point above and beyond what is recommended for someone with severe epilepsy.

Fifteen years ago I could cite analysis and research explaining the political and monetary reasoning in labeling addiction a disease, and that it was bunk science at best, financial brainwashing at worst.

I bought into Rational Recovery and AVRT, and even went to the roots of the RR movement to study Ellis and his CBT-based Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy. What I clung to the most about RR was its bashing of AA and thrashing of the disease paradigm. I see great value in those programs for many, and to this day apply principles learned from RR and AVRT and REBT.

But I couldn't quit. If you had been through my childhood or the tragedies that befell my life as a young adult, you would drink and drug too. That was basically my rationale and my motto.

I now buy the insane, sick thinking and mindset that is shared by a lot of people like me, the self-seeking and immoral behavior is mine to own and can't be blamed on my addictions, but somehow they are intricately woven into one thread: I Was drunk and a drug addict. I lived a delusional life in denial of my addictions and their consequences for 40 years.

If you find you have power over alcohol and drugs, and quit and move on in life, and don't have to address internal issues that made you drink and drug, I salute you. In fact, I don't think you are diseased.

I think there is power to be had in coming to a life-altering decision to just not drink or drug. If you can do that, and you can deal with the ramifications and consequences that that behavior may or may not have caused, I think you don't have a disease and tip my hat to you.

I am just trying to gently tell those that may have only a few months or few weeks of abstinence and now insist without a shred of doubt that alcoholism surely is not a disease but rather a bad, even immoral choice that can be eliminated through the power within you, that 15 years ago I believed exactly as you do now. And I hope that you come to an impossible, improbable concept -- you might, just perhaps, be wrong.

If I have grown at all in my three years and three months of sobriety I know one thing to be true: I don't know what is right for you. But if three months or six months or one year from now you find yourself drunk or stoned or both, you might consider gaining some open-mindedness that you might not know if addiction is a disease or not. You might find out the definition of mental masturbation the way I did, which wasn't pretty at all.

Sorensen

Comparing Alcoholism to diabetes is ridiculous. First off type 2 diabetes most of the time is from poor diet but it is still a malfunction of the pancreas. Type 1 diabetes usually hits people when they are young and they had absolutely no control over it whatsoever.

Its not like our pituitary gland in our brains started to grow and gave us alcoholism. The onus is all on us. We have nobody but ourselves to blame.

dwtbd

In what way does not accepting the disease model hinder one who decides to quit drinking or drugging?

Sorensen

The disease concept of alcoholism removes the responsibility of alcoholics for their own behaviors.14 Dr. Peele asserts that "Perhaps the most dire consequence of the disease model of addiction is that it has encouraged the abdication of individual responsibility for outrageous conduct" and he suggests that "Creating a world of addictive diseases may mean creating a world in which anything is excusable.


Some critics of the disease model argue alcoholism is a choice, not a disease, and stripping alcohol abusers of their choice, by applying the disease concept, is a threat to the health of the individual; the disease concept gives the substance abuser an excuse. A disease cannot be cured by force of will; therefore, adding the medical label transfers the responsibility from the abuser to caregivers. Inevitably the abusers become unwilling victims, and just as inevitably they take on that role. They argue that the disease theory of alcoholism exists only to benefit the professionals' and governmental agencies responsible for providing recovery services, and the disease model has not offered a solution for those attempting to stop abusive alcohol and drug use.

HopeSho

I'm sorry, but I don't agree. First off, Type 2 is almost always caused by poor diet and obesity which cause the pancreas to malfunction. Why is it so easy for people to think every organ in the body acts completely out of our control except the brain?

The MOST complex organ of all, is somehow supposed to be under our total control or we are weak, or it's a defect of character. That's so silly to me. And what do you get exactly from blaming yourself for your alcoholism? An excuse to drink?

MaxxPower

Abstinence Violation Effect - YouTube

Sorensen

Hope where your logic comes from is beyond me, you need medication to stay ALIVE with diabetes but alcoholism you just have to stay away from alcohol.... Dementia, brain tumours, alzheimer's are diseases of the brain.

So who else do I blame for my alcoholism, my mother? You have got to be kidding me, I chose to pick up the first drink and my inability to control how much I drink is because I am addicted. An addiction is not a disease. And no it is not an excuse to drink, if anything claiming you have a disease means you can't do anything about it, therefore taking the responsibility away from yourself.

Sorensen

Maxx, one of my favourite episodes, if you can't control how much you drink, then don't drink, stop blaming fantasy elves, leprechauns, and diseases on your problems.

HopeSho

Sorensen, how long have you been sober?

Sorensen

about 20 hours not very long but its irrelevant to my stance on the disease concept.

dwtbd

Hopesho
The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step , no? The timing of your question seems to suggest that you want to argue against someone's decision to quit drinking , because you disagree with their reasoning behind that decision, I hope that is an incorrect inference on my part.

RobbyRobot

I have alcoholism, and my accepting that does not take any responsibility away from me. In fact, it works well with my sober sense of responsibility. When I drank and didn't accept my alcoholism illness as contributing to my craving and obsessing with alcohol, I was at a complete loss to quit. I went in circles playing God with my addiction. Since I was never God, I of course kept drinking although I did have times when I would quit, but right back to it eventually. My alcoholism is much more than simply an addiction. I know you don't agree with the alcoholism as an illness theory, no problem for me. I'm just saying being a recovered alcoholic with years of successful sobriety doesn't really present as an example of not taking or not having responsibility. I guess we don't agree. Good to see you asking for help. I hope quitting works out for you.

TheEnd

Why are you so focused on trying to change people's minds? You have been sober for 20 hrs. Focus on the solution, not the problem .

RobbyRobot

And for how long do you continue to blame yourself? When do you not? And what makes the difference?

HopeSho

Sorensen

I created the thread in a attempt to gain knowledge on what people thoughts were on the disease concept, not for people to make asinine comments suggesting if alcoholism isn't a disease, neither is diabetes.

The solution is for me to stop drinking and I believe accepting the disease concept is harmful to anyone trying to get sober. Just my opinion.

Obviously it has not worked for me yet however I have not put in enough effort or commitment to remain sober, I know what I have to do.