SparkleKitty

As someone who has had to cease contact with a couple of addicted loved ones, I can tell you it wasn't that I didn't understand. I just couldn't continue put myself in a position to suffer the consequences (mental, physical, emotional, financial, whatever) of their continued inability and unwillingness to manage their own disease. It didn't mean I loved them one drop less, but I accepted that they were not in a position to be a part of my life any longer without hurting me.

When you love an active addict, a lot of your life tends to revolve around them, and often at your expense. Stepping away is an act of self-love and self-care; it doesn't have so much to do with the addict.

DriGuy

I often think the disease or not disease debate is irrelevant, and it surprises me how hotly debated if often is (not here thank goodness). If it is one and not the other, how does that change what we must do in recovery? It doesn't lend support to the importance of any particular ideological method of recovery or take away from one either. At least, I don't see how. Alcoholism is a personal problem, and the emphasis needs to be on what we can do to solve it, not on what we call it.

lessgravity

Lots of real wisdom here. I like doggonecarl's analogy to a lung cancer victim who decides to smoke. But even so, ours in not a terminal "disease" unless we pick up and drink.

If cancer only struck those who made self-destructive decisions, who lied and cheated in the face of cancer, who chose to act in ways that hurt those around them over and over before they got cancer, maybe cancer would be seen more like alcoholism. I am not a proponent of the disease paradigm for many reasons but especially because it removes agency from the equation and agency, willpower, belief action are all available to those of us who want to quit booze and get our lives right. Those are not options for people with brain cancer or like my friend's 38 year old wife who has leukemia. Her pain and suffering is a tragedy of bad luck and a bad hand, she did nothing to earn the pain that her three young girls are going through. The pain my son experienced because I chose to drink in the face of the knowledge that I was hurting him was nothing he could ever have deserved - and so I can understand people who don't "understand", sometimes I am one of them myself.

Evoo

Alcoholism makes people uncomfortable. It used to make me deeply uncomfortable to hear about — and I’d have been the first to separate myself mentally from “real alcoholics” and blast them in my head as mentally and emotionally weak people who can’t “man up” and deal.

Looking back, that was my AV talking — but it’s also the perception of the general public. Addiction is hard to understand by people not familiar with it because addiction is, by definition, irrational.

be careful with “disease” language. Alcohol use disorder is certainly a condition, but one that can be mitigated with treatment (sobriety). An alcoholic who continues to drink is akin to a person with an eating disorder continuing to binge and purge without seeking help or healing. Yes, empathy is in order, but ultimately the responsibility for healing is on the person with the addiction.

Hang in there. This takes a lot of time.