Is alcoholism a disease like any physical disease?
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Is alcoholism a disease like any physical disease?
Is alcoholism a disease like any physical disease? I guess I would consider it more of a mental disorder like depression or anxiety. Not exactly a physical disease like cancer I would think.
Anyway my larger point is are most people who drink to much alcoholics or simply irresponsible assholes in your opinion? Or both I guess. I have times when I drank to much but I don't think I have an addiction or compulsion to drink. Just kind of like to get drunk every now and then and have a good time. Its not that I cant stop drinking. The other night I went into a bar and had one beer and that was it. Never had a dui or lost a job due to the bottle. Maybe drink about once a week maybe 4 or 5 beers at a time. Anyway where is the line between someone who drinks and someone who has a drinking problem?
Anyway my larger point is are most people who drink to much alcoholics or simply irresponsible assholes in your opinion? Or both I guess. I have times when I drank to much but I don't think I have an addiction or compulsion to drink. Just kind of like to get drunk every now and then and have a good time. Its not that I cant stop drinking. The other night I went into a bar and had one beer and that was it. Never had a dui or lost a job due to the bottle. Maybe drink about once a week maybe 4 or 5 beers at a time. Anyway where is the line between someone who drinks and someone who has a drinking problem?
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 24,200
Here, read this sticky post. It's at the top of the Alcoholism forum.
Your question is one we all wrestle with - this thread I'm linking has a good medical side explanation.
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...influence.html
Your question is one we all wrestle with - this thread I'm linking has a good medical side explanation.
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...influence.html
High on Life
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Been to Hell and Back
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Alcoholism doesn't even really exist if you want to get technical. When they diagnose you according to the DSM-V, you are either alcohol dependent or an alcohol abuser. That being said maybe you're an alcohol abuser. Or maybe there is more going on with you, because you joined this board back in 2014 and you're still coming back? So it's like one of those things you have to sit down and ask yourself. Do I have a problem with alcohol? And be serious about this answer, because it's not something physical where you can go to the doctor and get an MRI and look forward to the results.
12 Step Recovered Alcoholic
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Thailand
Posts: 6,594
AA doesn't call it a disease. We use words like illness and malady.
A couple of years back our lead researcher in this field, psychiatrist professor Doug Selman told us in a public meeting that it is primarily a brain disease and can be seen on the MRI. He also talked about a genetic component.
In one sense, as a disease, it certainly has a very specific set of symptoms and consequences and is highly predictable in how it will progress. A confusing element is the fact that it appears the sufferer inflicts it on himslef. Yet that is far from the case. Who in their right mind would choose alcoholic hell as a way of life?
However, heart problems and diabetes are diseases that can be self inflicted (lifestyle disease), yet they are still called diseases, even though the sufferer may have considerably more choice in their development.
Loss of choice, for the alcoholic /addict is a crucial element, though it is often disputed by those who have never lost the power of choice. It can be approached in two ways.
Firstly we could tell the sufferer that it is just a matter of choice, that he needs to toughen up, that his relapses are a sign of weakness, lack of committment, gutlessness, bad choices, that he is consistantly choosing to drink, and should just stop like everybody else does.
Or we might consider there is more to it, that the alcoholic is suffering from an illness or disease that is progressive and has a very definite pathology. We could recognise as, in almost any other disease, it is not a matter of choice. We can explain that there is a solution, a specific treatment for the illness which is known to be successful, and we could also empathise in that many of us (alcoholics) have struggled with this disease and been unable to beat it on our own. It is not a matter of weakness or strength, intelligence or lack thereof, it is simply a disease progressing in a specific way. And we know for even the hopeless cases like myself, it can be arrested if we choose/are willing to take the medicine.
A couple of years back our lead researcher in this field, psychiatrist professor Doug Selman told us in a public meeting that it is primarily a brain disease and can be seen on the MRI. He also talked about a genetic component.
In one sense, as a disease, it certainly has a very specific set of symptoms and consequences and is highly predictable in how it will progress. A confusing element is the fact that it appears the sufferer inflicts it on himslef. Yet that is far from the case. Who in their right mind would choose alcoholic hell as a way of life?
However, heart problems and diabetes are diseases that can be self inflicted (lifestyle disease), yet they are still called diseases, even though the sufferer may have considerably more choice in their development.
Loss of choice, for the alcoholic /addict is a crucial element, though it is often disputed by those who have never lost the power of choice. It can be approached in two ways.
Firstly we could tell the sufferer that it is just a matter of choice, that he needs to toughen up, that his relapses are a sign of weakness, lack of committment, gutlessness, bad choices, that he is consistantly choosing to drink, and should just stop like everybody else does.
Or we might consider there is more to it, that the alcoholic is suffering from an illness or disease that is progressive and has a very definite pathology. We could recognise as, in almost any other disease, it is not a matter of choice. We can explain that there is a solution, a specific treatment for the illness which is known to be successful, and we could also empathise in that many of us (alcoholics) have struggled with this disease and been unable to beat it on our own. It is not a matter of weakness or strength, intelligence or lack thereof, it is simply a disease progressing in a specific way. And we know for even the hopeless cases like myself, it can be arrested if we choose/are willing to take the medicine.
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: US
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It sounds like you are trying to figure out where you are on the spectrum of addiction. You're comparing and judging. That's normal.
Whether or not you are alcoholic is up to you. If you have negative consequences from your drinking, then its a problem. If you can't stop, then its an addiction.
Whether or not you are alcoholic is up to you. If you have negative consequences from your drinking, then its a problem. If you can't stop, then its an addiction.
High on Life
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Originally Posted by ScottFromWI 
Can I ask why you are here starting these threads if you don't have a drinking problem Jay?
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Self recovered Self discovered
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Toronto Canada
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cejay, did you read your own link?
It seems that we have medical doctors, professionals, who disagree with what lay people are telling them about their own business.
Dropping the mic might be a little premature here.
Another study found that only 25 percent of physicians believed that alcoholism is a disease.
Dropping the mic might be a little premature here.
Left the bottle behind 4/16/2015
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: NC
Posts: 1,416
At this point, I don't really invest much time splitting hairs about what to label my addiction. Whether it's called disease, addiction, illness, sickness, affliction, insanity, etc... it really doesn't impact what I'm doing to address it, especially since what I'm doing is working. It's also helping to make me an all-around better person in the meantime.
I wasted a lot of years, most of those years, avoiding the one thing that is working for me now simply because I couldn't accept the disease-model of addiction. Meanwhile, I kept getting drunk. I kept getting sicker. But I finally got to the point where what we call it is irrelevant to me. If anyone asks, I usually call it an illness. I avoid the term "disease," simply because it does tend to be polarizing and that detracts from the most important part: recovery. I simply want to live, and I want to do it sober. The way I have chosen is, so far, the only thing that is consistently helping me do that.
I wasted a lot of years, most of those years, avoiding the one thing that is working for me now simply because I couldn't accept the disease-model of addiction. Meanwhile, I kept getting drunk. I kept getting sicker. But I finally got to the point where what we call it is irrelevant to me. If anyone asks, I usually call it an illness. I avoid the term "disease," simply because it does tend to be polarizing and that detracts from the most important part: recovery. I simply want to live, and I want to do it sober. The way I have chosen is, so far, the only thing that is consistently helping me do that.
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Originally Posted by ScottFromWI
Can I ask why you are here starting these threads if you don't have a drinking problem Jay?
Marchia in Aeternum
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Georgia
Posts: 10,894
Originally Posted by freshstart57
cejay, did you read your own link?
It seems that we have medical doctors, professionals, who disagree with what lay people are telling them about their own business.
Dropping the mic might be a little premature here.
It seems that we have medical doctors, professionals, who disagree with what lay people are telling them about their own business.
Dropping the mic might be a little premature here.
Practicing.
On us.
Drop the mic and live on.
Self recovered Self discovered
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Toronto Canada
Posts: 5,148
Err, when you use that word I don't think it means what you think it means. Professional practice has a different meaning than practicing your golf swing. You know that, right? Maybe I am the one being thick here?
Maybe you don't like doctors. How does that relate to the OP? Are you saying that some other group knows more about this stuff?
Maybe you don't like doctors. How does that relate to the OP? Are you saying that some other group knows more about this stuff?
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