Zencat

I'm not a big fan of the disease model of alcoholism myself. I too feel that some people may use the: I have a disease and can not stop drinking.

Or

Follow along with the organizations and fields of addiction treatment that see things much the same as you do. Distress problem fixed!

Disease Model of AlcoholismIMO The disease model of alcoholism is quite simple really. It borrows from the medical model of course. But I think people get hung up on the pathogen implications that is in the medical model. The alcoholism model just focuses on alcohol ingestion as being primary. What the exact cause of alcoholism is where the big debate comes in.

Yep people can be odd sometimes.

LOL...Like there is some sinister invisible alcohol dispensing robot that follows a person around forcing alcohol down their throat against their will...its all very odd to me.

shockozulu

I did. I had an uncle with four wives, yet over 9 of children (most did not meet until adulthood') are in recovery or still drinking. That is genetics my friend.

Yes they can. On many cancer patients the same drug will not work so they now test the drug in a vial against the cancerous cells before attempting to try it on a patient. My mother died of Huntington's Disease. It attacks one in every two children from a single parent who suffers. There is no cure or treatment.

Perhaps you just think more. There are many brilliant men and women that spend most of their working hours at "Think Tanks"

Terminally Unique

I've said this elsewhere before, which more or less sums up my take on things, but this seems like a good thread for it as well.

steelmagnolia

Stop looking! Does it really matter?

soberlicious

"But I can't...I've tried...it's this damned disease I have."
You've heard it before, TU...

BackToSquareOne

If you take the "labels" completely out of the picture what you are left with is the undeniable fact that some people feel more compelled to drink than others. It's very hard to argue though that "compulsion" has the power to override free will or the power of choice.

The devil does not assign special tactical alcohol control demons to make sure that each drunk keeps his/her blood alcohol levels topped off. The transition from sober to drunk is always a choice, might be a choice corrupted by the pull of addiction but it's still a choice.

Terminally Unique

Oh, I definitely believe that it has a physiological basis, B2Sq1, but this compulsion is created by alcohol. If people never drank alcohol in the first place, it would not exist. The only notable exception are people whose mothers drank while pregnant, or who fed their child alcohol in the bottle (this was once common). I do not recall craving or desiring alcohol prior to ever drinking it in the first place.

Terminally Unique

I certainly have, soberlicious, and there are many posts in the friends and family forums about this. In addition to coming up with its own justifications for further drinking, the addictive voice will readily incorporate scientific discourse into its bag o' tricks. It will do the same with psychological discourse, as in the case of 'coping' and 'dealing' with 'issues'. Anything and everything that might get you to view alcohol as medicine instead of poison will do.

shockozulu

This one always gets me. You can arrest this disease. You can use AVRT, SMART or a twelve step model. I was recently speaking with a man who had multiple heart attacks by the time he was in mid-30s from shooting coke. He believes in the disease model but also believes that he has to be active in his recovery over twenty years later on a daily basis or just like someone with cancer who stops their chemo, he will die.

On the secular level I find his "recovery" humorous although I'd never say it to his face. He swears he goes to meetings because over the years that's where his friends are at, yet every time we talk if I had a dime when "a co-worker" "his boss" or "his girlfriend" or even "Joe down the street" called him, I'd be rich as hell. Personally I think some of us are just more social animals that others and when these people stop isolating from using/drinking their meetings replace bars for chit-chat.

On the other hand, he also forces himself daily to engage in some proactive recovery based technique. He thinks that starting his day by reading a daily reflection, for example, is very important. To me that is much more along the lines of some of the secular programs that put the stress on personal responsibility. He believes in Mr Higher Power even though he converted to Christian Orthodoxy due to his marriage.

Just because anything can be used to "justify" drinking/using doesn't make it a good or bad model. Myself, I think its 80% bunk, 20% genes. And just because they do doesn't mean they have to work a step program.

Stang

I have the disease of cussing too much so I'll abstain from it in this post so as not to feed the disease. I think the disease model is horse feces.

One way or the other though I can't drink alcohol without eventually killing myself so I don't do it.

kanamit

I don't understand the "it runs in the family" argument myself. There are plenty of environmental factors that cause things to be passed on from generation to generation that have nothing to do with genetics or biochemistry. I have several habits, some bad some not, that I picked up from my father.

If it really is a disease and people are powerless over it then I object to people being prosecuted for driving under the influence of alcohol and other drugs. It's not their fault.

gneiss

I think the, "it runs in the family" thing hints at a genetic predisposition for chemical dependency. But the thing is, it's so behavioral. So I have a predisposition for it, but that still doesn't mean I have to use.

Also with behavioral stuff like drinking, I wonder how much of it is genetic and how much of it is learned. I really don't know the answer, perhaps someone else does. Seems to me if you grow up in a house with an alcoholic, you tend to think that behavior is normal and are more likely to perpetuate it. If your grandparents were but your parents aren't, their behavior is still affected by it, and it's likely to express itself in your upbringing somewhere, albeit in a much less direct manner. Does that make sense.

I'm starting to see this impact of how relationships are perpetuated, and not necessarily in regards to alcoholism. My mom and her sister aren't at all close. Christmas and birthday phone calls is about all they have to say to each other. So naturally I didn't know my aunt very well growing up even though she actually lived fairly close. So now I'm starting to get to know her and realizing that my mom and my aunt have the same relationship I have with my sister. It makes me wonder, basically that's the relationship my mom thinks is normal, so she would have raised my sister and I very much the way she and her sister were raised. So if you can engineer life-long sibling rivalry through upbringing, I wonder if you can engineer an alcoholic? Or at least someone who's thought patterns ran along the same lines, because that's what they were used to. And if someone with addictive thought patterns or behavior started drinking, would they be more likely to become addicted? I dunno, I'm kinda playing with ideas here. Seems the same as the disease model though: just because you're more likely to have a problem doesn't mean you can't choose to stop.

Stang

We had two murderers here years ago who were high at the time of the crime. They robbed and shot a School Principal outside his office when he was working late one night. Both received a death sentence. The Supreme Court overturned the sentences because the jury wasn't instructed to take intoxication into account as a mitigating factor.
They were again sentenced to death at retrial. I think both have been executed. As far as I'm concerned they should have hanged after the first trial. Drunk or sober when you do something like that you are a waste of oxygen. Regardless of my opinion that is the law in death penalty cases, I don't know about other crimes.

tiredoftryin

One thing that really gave me some relief regarding alcoholism was a man I heard on Public Radio or npr, the program Fresh Air. He was speaking of the research that he did on the brain and what he found. His name is David Linden. Here is something from npr that describes him and his work...

"Linden is a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the chief editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology"


And here is the web site for fresh air..

I cannot put the web site on here because I have not posted enough but you can find this by googling.

tired

m1k3

One uncle is statistically insignificant. In additional the relationship between the uncle and his children's drinking does not show a direct cause. There very well may have been other factors involved which can't be discounted.

I know I grew up with an AF but also in a blue collar neighborhood in the 50's and 60's where pretty much everyone drank and abusing alcohol was not only socially acceptable but expected. Were all the people who abused alcohol alcoholics? Most likely not but the chances of a person who abuses alcohol becoming an alcoholic is statistically higher.

So it is the old nurture or nature argument again. To me it is a little of both. I do believe there are people who are more susceptible to alcoholism than others and that living in an alcohol abusing culture increases those risks. I also believe there are people who are susceptible to alcoholism who grow up in a low alcohol use culture and never start to abuse alcohol do not go on to be alcoholics.

Until someone maps the alcoholic gene the question is not going to have a clear answer.

Purplecatlover

If alcoholism were truly a disease, then there is no cure like w/ cancer, diabetes, etc.
Why can people abstain for the rest of their lives & be okay?
It is a self inflicted poisoning of your body & mind.
That's like saying bullets are a disease. If you shoot yourself, it will probably be fatal.
All you have to do is not drink alcohol & voila.... All better. Cured.
Not a disease. A self inflicted illness, maybe.

Bamboozle

The CDC (USA) classifies diabetes as a disease: CDC - Chronic Disease - Diabetes - At A Glance

Diabetes (type 2) is often brought about by lifestyle.

Labeling something a disease doesn't absolve a person from being responsible for managing said disease.

If you're diabetic and you eat something you shouldn't, you're going to endanger your health. If you're addicted to alcohol and you drink something you shouldn't, you're going to endanger your health.


My urge to drink has yet to go away (will it ever?). My tendency towards addictive behavior has been with me for as long as I can remember. I don't know why I am the way I am. I'm just glad I've been able to shelve one of my behaviors--drinking alcohol.

GrowingDaily

Just because someone uses the term 'disease' as an excuse to continue drinking/drugging doesn't mean it's not exactly that. They could just as easily use a traditional disease as an excuse in the same capacity.

As far as the self-inflicted argument goes, couldn't you likewise extend that to any host of diseases? How about adult-onset diabetes? More often than not it's caused or exacerbated by lifestyle. Does that make it something other than a disease?

How about skin cancer caused by sun exposure, or lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure? Should we fault people for being so stupid they dared to step outside the house without sunblock? Or crawled into their attic without having a hazmat team clear the area first?

With alcohol, you have a product that's widely used - by the majority of the population. It's shoved down your throat on billboards, in magazines, on TV. And yet - despite the deafening social voice screaming at you to drink, drink, drink... we know that a percentage of people who do (errr... 'us') will, for a variety of reasons, develop dependency issues so overwhelming that they'll literally keep the cup to their lips as their life goes down the toilet. A physical, emotional, and psychological dependency which is directly caused by the action of alcohol on the nervous system.

If that's not the definition of a disease, I don't know what is.

EDIT: Sorry bamboozle - you were typing the same thing I was at the same time!

Bamboozle

Lol, it's all good. You said some things I omitted. Thanks.

sugarbear1

but only a person who is potentially an alcoholic to begin with would even consider drinking enough. the typical person doesn't bother.

i just know i can't drink again. the wording is irrelevant at this point in time. more for me to read about. thank you!

if there is money to be made, why isn't the tobacco industry supporting a disease model of "nicotine-ism" ?