Stevie1

I see your point, but so far I don't think anyone has gotten snotty.

Really, I don't mind what people call it (unless it enters political discourse where such terminology matters.) Personally, I still flounder a bit over the terminology....but I'm a writer so I naturally tend to pay attention to word usage, semantics and implications.

Bottom line we all know what alcoholism is and what it means to us personally, the rest is just semantics. And since definitions are somewhat subjective, there really isn't a "right" or "wrong" here. Mostly we are just picking nits.

justdave

I've always wondered about the 'disease' classification of alcoholism. I've been told I'm prone to it because of family history. I don't know, sometimes I think its because of my environment growing up.

Alcohol was always present when I was a child. I remember having a curiosity about it. Dad would ask me to toss his empties in the trash and fetch him a cold one. I'd always secretly suck the last drops out of the can before tossing them. I was probably 6 or 7 at the time.

I remember him giving me a little bit of whiskey in a shot glass one time. He probably thought it was funny when I responded "HOT!". I was maybe 8 years old. Nowadays parents would be jailed for this sort of thing, LOL.

Wine, beer. I was always curious about it. At 11 or 12 I started experimenting with alcohol, gin (parents were martini drinkers mostly). Then my teen years, it all started in earnest. I was always the one to get smashed, always the heaviest drinker of my friends. I 'knew' even then I was an alcoholic, even boasted about it.

Late teen years, early 20's I was hiding empties in my bedroom closet. Wrapping them in newspaper and sneaking them out of the house to dump somewhere. When I drank, I had no control over the amount. For example, I had ruined a relationship with a girlfriend and also ruined the inside of her car by puking after consuming a massive amount of Mickeys (yuck). One time I chugged more than half a 5th of scotch much to the amazement of my friends, just poured it down my throat. Over and over, every weekend I binged like this. Lucky I didn't die on a few occasions, seriously.

21st birthday, now its legal to buy alcohol and I never stopped drinking really. 21 years later and now I have quit, hopefully for good.

Maybe its a disease, but either way I definitely was destined for it.

gravity

I've come to think of the obsession/delusion as some sort of mental illness. The physical part, not being able to stop once starting, is just plain bizarre.

Oh well...sober now for over 3 years. Needed AA and counselling to break free from it. Lot's of work but the payoff has been HUGE.

Scrubmuncher

I think this is spot on, I think referring to alcoholism as a disease is a cop out. Someone claimed this one day and some alcoholic felt it took some pressure of the self inflicted side and responsibility side of things, and so it stood for the easy cop out.
I haven't got a disease of alcoholism, I won't die unless I poison myself, it isn't a natural occurrence without my own intention to wallow in it, bring it on myself.
I've been an alcoholic for well over 20 years and have always considered those claiming it is a disease as not accepting responsibility for their own actions. Or they are on a completely different level of troubles to what I am living.

Mark75

I don't consider alcoholism a disease in the classic sense of the word.... and don't refer to myself as diseased.... but neither is alcoholism an indicator of an individuals essence in terms of their morality... there is in your post an implication that by calling one's alcoholism a disease an individual is abdicating their own responsibility in all of this.

I have not personally witnessed that, even by those who refer to alcoholism as a disease.

Scrubmuncher

Well that is the double barrelled concept, depends where you stand on things. Words can be 'just words', or they can hold weight.
I think automatically by referring to alcoholism as a disease it is a calling for a certain amount of sympathy, 'poor me' kind of sympathy, or 'you HAVE to understand I can't control this, so you can't be mad at me when I screw up, wet myself or insult your wife', or simply 'you can not judge me'.
It seems if you tag something with disease then you are to a certain degree void of responsibility.

Mark75

No, I disagree...

We really don't know what another persons innermost thoughts are, so we are only speculating. My sense of this is that the alcoholic who wets himself or insults others or whatever, is, well, alcoholic.... and is powerless over the stuff and their lives have become unmanageable. And a cycle develops. Until such time that a moment of clarity presents it's self, or they die, they see no way out, and hence become helpless... the idea of personal responsibility is beyond them and the alcoholic becomes hopeless.

It really is interesting, the different POV on this...

If I have a disease, any disease, I want to get better. Whatever it takes. Antibiotics, chemotherapy, insulin, surgery... whatever it takes... even the 12 steps of AA!

Scrubmuncher

Hmmm, nah!! I can't agree with you. Only one person puts that drink to my lips, I am entirely responsible for that action. The reason that drink is put to the lips in the knowledge we may do something hurtful or stupid to ourselves or others is because we are weak, selfish and unable to comprehend respect on a personal level and often towards others. At least as far as alcohol goes, this doesn't lie well with many people, they don't like to hear or accept this and so stick a label that no one can question on it 'disease' and we are able to live with ourselves slightly easier, takes the pressure off, in some instances makes it okay.

Infact if you stick the 'disease' label on it then it makes it acceptable and often something that you have to do, medicine.

keithj

That's exactly what I thought when I was caught in that mess of active alcoholism, sober for a while, drinking for a while, losing families, getting arrested, in and out of treatment and rehabs. I just couldn't wrap my head around what a cop out that idea was.

When I got beaten down some more, I had to take a look at why I would pick up a drink again, knowing where it always took me. Call it disease or call it poor judgment, something else was going on here. Why would I get to that point of desperation, lose everything, make those promises to never drink again, and then as soon as the heat was off, there I would be all drunk once more.

Some call it disease, AA calls it a mental obsession over which I lack sufficient power to overcome. The name doesn't matter. What matters is, do you want to get better? Then acceptance that you can't overcome this thing has been a starting point for countless successfully recovered alcoholics.

Mark75

I did not mean to imply that the alcoholic is not responsible for their own actions... If I did so, thanx for bringing that to light.... Neither, though, should one crucify themselves with guilt and shame and bear the cross of being immoral... just stop drinking!!!

Scrubmuncher

Amen brother

Stevie1

Very succinct and well put.

The stumbling block for me has always been, that any "disease" I can think of - from cancer to diabetes to schizophrenia - is primarily either cured or managed by medication, surgery and other types of medical intervention.

Although there are drugs for many types of addiction, addiction is cured or managed first and foremost by willpower/spiritual intervention/higher power. None of these tactics work on, say, cancer or schizophrenia. A higher power can't cure pancreatic cancer, and nor can willpower. (I realise there are people who claim such miracles happen, but I don't believe them.) These things can affect how one deals with cancer, but doesn't fundamentally affect the disease itself.

I do think that some people distance themselves from their own addictive behaviour, whether it's alcohol, gambling, video games or TV watching, food, sex, etc, by calling it a disease. Compulsive/obsessive behaviours and thoughts aren't diseases, in my mind. I'm a smoker - definitely very, very addicted. I don't call my smoking a "disease." I have a very obese friend who will be the first to tell you that the reason she is obese is because she is obsessed by and addicted to eating.

This doesn't mean that they aren't life and soul-destroying and can even lead to serious illness or death. But they're not "diseases" in the same class as pancreatic cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, schizophrenia, et al.

The above is my opinion only...it's certainly not for me to dictate or be invested in what other people want to call their addictions!

I do think semantics and definitions can make a difference in public policy, though. If smoking is a disease then can it also be classed as a disability, where employers must not discriminate against smokers - and not only that, accomodate them, if, say they need a break every 60 minutes for a smoke because they have a disease?