The "disease" of alcoholism.

[Skoob]

I would like to pull this back on-topic.

If you would like to discuss 12 step programs, please start another thread.

Is alcoholism a disease like cancer or not?

[BluffTHIS!]

The question is whether any very strong addiction, with both physical and psychological components, is a disease. And also at issue is whether to be a disease, something has to be able to be cured medically. However many adverse medical conditions can result from ingestion or exposure to toxins, and decrease or go away entirely when that consumption/exposure is stopped (though there might be permanent damage but which is limited by stopping), although that ususually presumes a will to stop, as in for example habitually eating from a contaminated source (like fish from the East River).

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
I would like to pull this back on-topic.

If you would like to discuss 12 step programs, please start another thread.

Is alcoholism a disease like cancer or not?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sorry, I made my post before I read this, and I apologize for the hijack.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
I would like to pull this back on-topic.

If you would like to discuss 12 step programs, please start another thread.

Is alcoholism a disease like cancer or not?

[/ QUOTE ]

This question is wholly semantic and meaningless.

Alcoholism isn't analogous to cancer. It may or may not be analogous to depression. You can call it a "disease" if you want, it doesn't matter. The question is relevant not to doctors but to politicians, who are the ones who care about whether a particularly charged word is associated with a given subject or not. In psychiatric terms, it is certainly useful to label it as an illness, and that is the only thing that matters.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
I would like to pull this back on-topic.

If you would like to discuss 12 step programs, please start another thread.

Is alcoholism a disease like cancer or not?

[/ QUOTE ]
In my experience alcoholics are born not made. That's only based on my experience in several groups of heavy drinkers where 1) it seems clear that no amount of heavy drinking makes most people alcoholics and 2) The alcoholics have a completely different relationship with drinking than the rest of us.

chez

[ChrisV]

Whether or not it's a "disease" is semantics, it depends how you define disease.

I have mild tendencies towards alcoholism myself. If it wasn't going to do me any damage, I'd probably drink a bottle of wine every night. When I start drinking I find it difficult to stop, so I tend not to start most days.

If I felt I had a problem bad enough to require more serious action, I'd go with the Rational Recovery approach rather than AA. As they say there:

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• Addiction recovery is not a group project; it is an individual responsibility. You are ultimately on your own.

• There are no Rational Recovery groups anywhere in the world! Your desire for “support” is nothing more, and nothing less, than a plan to get loaded in the absence of support.

• Stay away from recovery groups of all kinds; you can’t possibly recover there. They’ll never let you go, and you’ll be “in recovery” forever.

[/ QUOTE ]

Paul Phillips talks about it here. The way he describes his drinking sounds similar to me.

[Kimbell175113]

No one's taken Phil's bait wtf?

[chezlaw]

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No one's taken Phil's bait wtf?

[/ QUOTE ]
we recognise Phil's condition as a disease.

chez

[ChrisV]

bait?

[ChrisV]

oh that phil. never mind.