The "disease" of alcoholism.

[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.

[vhawk01]

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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.

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I agree, it wasn't the best disease to illustrate your point, but it was a fantastic one to illustrate mine. No one would ever hesitate to consider type I diabetes a disease. And yet I've just shown you how, to your criteria at least, it is very similar to alcoholism. You could have chosen a disease that is less like alcoholism, but why?

As to your second point, I would bet that the lifetime diabetic finds their routine far less extraordinarily strenuous than the alcoholic finds 'simply not drinking.'

[Sharkey]

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You could have chosen a disease that is less like alcoholism, but why?

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Interesting. I'll have to think about that.

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As to your second point, I would bet that the lifetime diabetic finds their routine far less extraordinarily strenuous than the alcoholic finds 'simply not drinking.'

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I still maintain there is an essential difference between a disease that interferes with critical functions like food intake and one that only involves voluntary activities like drinking.

[vhawk01]

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You could have chosen a disease that is less like alcoholism, but why?

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Interesting. I'll have to think about that.

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As to your second point, I would bet that the lifetime diabetic finds their routine far less extraordinarily strenuous than the alcoholic finds 'simply not drinking.'

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I still maintain there is an essential difference between a disease that interferes with critical functions like food intake and one that only involves voluntary activities like drinking.

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There are plenty of differences. If you want to consider them critical, thats your prerogative, but I think you'll have to make a better case than you have here. And can I ask why it is important that there be a critical difference?

[Sharkey]

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There are plenty of differences. If you want to consider them critical, thats your prerogative, but I think you'll have to make a better case than you have here. And can I ask why it is important that there be a critical difference?

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The following seems reasonable:

Impairment of a vital function is required for a condition to be a disease. Drinking is not a vital function. Therefore, alcoholism is not a disease.

[vhawk01]

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There are plenty of differences. If you want to consider them critical, thats your prerogative, but I think you'll have to make a better case than you have here. And can I ask why it is important that there be a critical difference?

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The following seems reasonable:

Impairment of a vital function is required for a condition to be a disease. Drinking is not a vital function. Therefore, alcoholism is not a disease.

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Thats not the vital function that alcoholism impairs. Alcoholism is defined as the continuation of drinking in the face of adverse consequences. The vital function that alcoholism impairs is having personal and professional relationships.

[Sharkey]

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There are plenty of differences. If you want to consider them critical, thats your prerogative, but I think you'll have to make a better case than you have here. And can I ask why it is important that there be a critical difference?

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The following seems reasonable:

Impairment of a vital function is required for a condition to be a disease. Drinking is not a vital function. Therefore, alcoholism is not a disease.

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Thats not the vital function that alcoholism impairs. Alcoholism is defined as the continuation of drinking in the face of adverse consequences. The vital function that alcoholism impairs is having personal and professional relationships.

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It depends on how alcoholism is defined.

If it is totally behavioral, then its manifestation is a matter of choice.

If it has a biological basis and all that it effects is drinking, then no vital function is involved, and therefore it is not a disease.

[WordWhiz]

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Thats not the vital function that alcoholism impairs. Alcoholism is defined as the continuation of drinking in the face of adverse consequences. The vital function that alcoholism impairs is having personal and professional relationships.

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In other words, alcoholism is a "disease" because people like drinking so much that they'd rather do it than have a good marriage or hold down a job. Societal judgment that this is an improper choice is what makes people condemn alcoholism as a disease, but not hippie-ism, which also might lead to various job/ relationship problems.

An article I meant to link to in my earlier post: Bryan Caplan, one of my favorite economists, analyzes mental illness using a Szaszian/ microeconomics model. The key conclusion:

In contrast, most mental diseases amount to nothing more than unusual preferences; they do not affect what a person can do, only what he wants to do.

I don't fully agree with the conclusions, especially with regards to certain mental disorders like schizophrenia, but it's good reading for a totally different outlook on mental illness.

Full article:
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/econo...n/szaszrev.doc (Word doc).

[vhawk01]

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Thats not the vital function that alcoholism impairs. Alcoholism is defined as the continuation of drinking in the face of adverse consequences. The vital function that alcoholism impairs is having personal and professional relationships.

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In other words, alcoholism is a "disease" because people like drinking so much that they'd rather do it than have a good marriage or hold down a job. Societal judgment that this is an improper choice is what makes people condemn alcoholism as a disease, but not hippie-ism, which also might lead to various job/ relationship problems.

An article I meant to link to in my earlier post: Bryan Caplan, one of my favorite economists, analyzes mental illness using a Szaszian/ microeconomics model. The key conclusion:

In contrast, most mental diseases amount to nothing more than unusual preferences; they do not affect what a person can do, only what he wants to do.

I don't fully agree with the conclusions, especially with regards to certain mental disorders like schizophrenia, but it's good reading for a totally different outlook on mental illness.

Full article:
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/econo...n/szaszrev.doc (Word doc).

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This all seems reasonable to me. I could honestly care less what we call it, whether we call it a disease or a condition or a syndrome or just some bad choices. I'm going into medicine to help people, and I am entirely convinced that doctors can help alcoholics. To me, a disease is only a useful classification insofar as it implies that the situation is under my jurisdiction.

[Phil153]

The difference between alcoholism and hippie-ism is that alcoholism involves the excessive, compulsive, and uncontrolled ingestion of mind and personality altering substances that are toxic to the brain and body.

To see this as equivalent to lifestyle choices such as celibacy or hippie-ism is ridiculous.