[Sharkey]

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Alcoholism has a biological component. In that way it is a disease. Though it is one you can self-cure using will power, unlike diabetes for instance.

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What kind of diabetes? I was actually going to use diabetes as my counter-example, in case anyone disagreed with my previous point.

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The kind where nothing you do will make it go away. That is what I meant.

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Well, you could certainly argue that a drastically modified lifestyle (including regularly checking your blood sugar and maintaining healthy insulin and glucose levels) would 'make the disease go away' for all intents and purposes. You could eliminate all elevated risk of long-term complications. Of course, you would still 'have the disease,' meaning your pancreatic islet cells would still not be producing their own insulin, but in that sense only.

And I think the same can be said of alcoholism. By making lifestyle changes (i.e. not drinking, 'exerting your will power,' or going to meetings) you can eliminate any increased risk of long-term health consequences. Of course, you still 'have the disease,' in that if you have a few drinks 5 years later you will almost certainly relapse.

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Diabetes was not the best example I could have used, anyway.

With diabetes, the patient has to take extraordinary measures outside the course of normal human behaviour. The alcoholic only has to not drink.