Muscatine

They say alcoholism is a "disease".  What do you think?  From my experience with members of my own family, who kicked the booze after decades of heavy drinking, I'd say it is probably more of a personality disorder than a disease.

     I saw someone go cold turkey and overcome long term alcoholism, and stay off it until they died years later.  I'm not sure that you can really "cure" a disease yourself without some outside help.  But you can change a personality disorder if you have the will.

       If you look at this in that aspect, it makes you wonder why some are blessed with more will power and character than others?  Genetics?  Upbringing?  How they view themselves in the context of society?

   In any event, I haven't seen any convincing evidence that alcoholism, or any other addiction, should really be classified as a disease.   If they are, then death by them should be called "death by natural causes", right?

    What do you think?  Got any good arguments for or against?

I'm not a Doctor. You may have to call upon one of our other members for any real medical advice. What I'll say is addiction is real. What causes it, how fast it happens, and to what extent is differnt for everyone. We all have our demons. Some smoke, some drink, and others eat. Some do all three and for many different reasons. Will power is a big part of stopping anything. The levels of will power vary just as much as the reasons, but we can not ignore the physical withdraw side of the issue. The fact there is a physical withdraw, or that the drug attacks a physical part of the body, I believe is what makes it a disease.

I have to go with the medical community that has studied it.   They classify it as a treatable disease.

I was hoping for a bit more logic and reason in this discussion.  Not that's the way it is because the medical profession says it is.  I'm of the opinion,  until proven wrong, that the medical profession classified alcoholism as a disease to make their patients feel better about themselves, and to convince them they need professional help to stop drinking.  Drinking is a choice.

I do realize that many drink in order to self medicate the underlying disease of chronic depression.  But, that is a choice....to use alcohol instead of other recognized methods and medicines.

Look, in a disease, for example, you can get lung cancer without smoking.  You can get diabetes without eating a lot of sugar.   But you can't become an alcoholic without picking up that first drink, can you?