Alcoholism is not a disease.

[iwearnosox]

Originally posted by: armatron

Originally posted by: Safeway

Originally posted by: BriGy86
if anything its only a condition, a self indused condition

diseases are cause by viruses

Self induced? Do you know anything about alcoholism? Alcoholism has been shown to be highly hereditary. People become addicted to alcohol just like any other drug, mentally and physically addicted. It is not all self induced. People that are actual alcoholics started out as innocently as you, but their body, due to heredity, demanded more of it. Its like heroin to them.

Self induced is not the right choice of words.

EVERY male in my family has been an EXTREME alchoholic for 3 generations.


I drink on fri night, sometimes sat... and a beer maybe one weekday




certainly my body isn't "craving" it...

Achoholism is pretty insideous, it will sneak up on many people. Be careful.

 

[Attrox]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: Vic
So what you're saying is that alcoholism is exactly like any other chemical dependency. So... in learning to overcome this dependency (which only came into existence by the initial CHOICE to start drinking), one can empower oneself to quit forever (which is what AA teaches), or one can victimizes oneself into believing that there is no choice and thus no hope. Obviously, you want to believe the latter. Recovering alcoholics around the world hope you enjoy it in hell.

It's awfully nice of you to twist my words around. Obviously, an alcoholic can help themselves (or get help). I didn't mean to imply that one can never stop drinking. However, they will always be an alcoholic. That is what makes them different from a non-alcoholic and what makes alcoholism a disease.

It's also interesting to know that you speak for all recovering alcoholics.

:disgust: There will always be someone who cheat from their spouse. Don't tell me infidelity is a disease too.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: armatron
EVERY male in my family has been an EXTREME alchoholic for 3 generations.

I drink on fri night, sometimes sat... and a beer maybe one weekday

certainly my body isn't "craving" it...

Well, I guess that settles it. BTW, how old are you? If what you say is true, you are in a high risk category to become an alcoholic. If you are not yet, you should seriously consider not drinking anymore. It would be a lot easier now than later.

BTW, I?m 29 and I have a good friend (same age) who could have said the same thing you were saying until about 27 or so. We partied and drank on the weekends. Of course, he was always a bigger drinker than I was. Nevertheless, he was functional and probably not a full-blown alcoholic. One particularly bad weekend (I wasn't there but there was some depression and a panic attack) put him over the edge. After that weekend, he knew he could never control his drinking again. His father is an alcoholic and his grandfather died from alcoholism.

 

[IGBT]

..once the threshold of addiction is crossed..the only choice is when/where to service the addiction. Most continue this behavior to the point of health failure. Talk to any medical/psychiatric professional in the rehab industry and they will tell you this is true.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: Amused
PLEASE. Use your head. Alcoholism is a word. A word used to describe something. It can not be it's own root.

Without craving and loss of ability to moderate, alcoholism does not exist.

BUT, all the other symptoms CAN occur in non-alcoholics who do not crave, therefore are not addicted to the drug.

Alcoholism is a word. No argument there. It is also a disease. I listed all of its symptoms in my previous post. If by root, you mean its cause, then science really doesn't have an answer at this point in time. There are some clues and theories (genetics, environment, etc.) but a lot is still unknown.

I guess it's time you re-wrote all the previous years of medical research and knowledge about alcoholism. You have a lot of work ahead of you.

The problem here does not lie with me, but with you.

You are reading a list of symptoms and side effects, and not understanding that not all of them singularly mean the person is an alcoholic. You are being simplistic.

Let's address them one by one, shall we? We'll start with one that should be rather easy to agree on.

Tolerance.

Do you believe that only alcoholics can build a tolerance to alcohol, and have to drink more to gain the same high? Or can anyone, even those not addicted, gain tolerance to alcohol?

I know from personal experience that ANYONE can gain a tolerance to alcohol.

What say you?

 

[TitanDiddly]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox

Originally posted by: shilala

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: shilala

Originally posted by: Amused
While it is true that some people are more easily addicted to alcohol, it is STILL a choice to keep drinking, or dry out.

No matter how heavily one is addicted, the CHOICE is still there.
.

Absolutely 100% wrong. Alcoholics have no choice in the matter of drink on any level, at any time, in any situation. Never did, never will. That goes for before picking up a drink, after picking it up, or before they ever took their first drink.

BULLSH1T

While they may lack the self control to control their drinking once they've started (the same as I am with my addictions) they DO have the ability to avoid alcohol completely.

This is why addicts MUST live in a black and white world when it comes to the objects of their addictions. They lack only the control to moderate their use. They DO NOT lack the control to avoid use altogether.

I know addiction very well. It is, and always will be, a CHOICE.

Millions of dry and clean addicts prove you 100% wrong.

Maybe it's simply the word "choice" that doesn't work for me. I do get your point.
Don't pick it up and it can't get away from you makes perfectly good sense.
Thing is, somewhere along the way in my alcoholic career, I completely lost the ability to exercise my "choice" on whether or not to pick it up.
I needed it and relied on it as much as oxygen. I picked it up to survive. It was that or a bullet in the melon.
Now I do have a choice. I can choose to get the ongoing help I need to control the problem. I can choose to do what I need to do to keep from ending up like I was.
I chose literally thousands of times not to drink and still did. I chose thousands of times not to continue drinking once I started, but still did.
I don't know what it's called when you choose to do something and it doesn't work out.
Lack of willpower, maybe. I liken willpower to trying not to shyt when I have diarrhea.
I don't want to shyt my pants if there's no toilet available. I can choose not to shyt my pants. If it's coming, it's coming.
I can't stop it.

It,s a severe lack of self control and nothing more, a weakness.

Kind of like your over eating.

100% true. I have a weakness, and I eat too much. There is a very important distinction here- It doesn't cause me to eat, I eat because I am weak. The alcoholic is not made to drink, he drinks because he is weak.

Originally posted by: iwearnosox

Doctors consider alcoholism a disease. This is through years of disciplined study and examining alchoholics.

PhasmatisNox disagrees. This is through years of nefing on a worthless message board.

Doctors beleive what they want to because it's convenient and it's what they want to hear. Just because many (not all) doctors have been told by everyone that something is true does not make it true. How about that phrenology again, eh?

Doctors considered phrenology to be fact. This was through years of disciplined study and examining mentally ill patients.

I disagree because I know that the sizes of a person's brain regions do not correspond to the intricate details of their personality.

Yet we know phrenology to be false. It was beleived for decades, upheld as fact and praised by the highest and mightiest in the land. Then somebody came to their senses and realized that they were telling themselves a lie and spoke out, and people came to their senses.

In the future, one of several things will happen; he world will end not much differently than it is now, or doctors will realize that alcoholism is not a disease, but a weakness. If the scientific community seeks truth, and not an easy answer- they will come to a true fact- not a fact that is proclaimed to be one just because of popular opinion.


-

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: NL5



Good luck with your sobriety - and I do mean that - I have lost a lot of friends to addiction - it really is sad to watch.

Well, I've been off drugs for nearly 20 years now.

I've been off tobacco for over 3 years.

 

[Piobaireachd]

Originally posted by: BriGy86

Originally posted by: Safeway

Originally posted by: BriGy86
if anything its only a condition, a self indused condition

diseases are cause by viruses

Self induced? Do you know anything about alcoholism? Alcoholism has been shown to be highly hereditary. People become addicted to alcohol just like any other drug, mentally and physically addicted. It is not all self induced. People that are actual alcoholics started out as innocently as you, but their body, due to heredity, demanded more of it. Its like heroin to them.

Self induced is not the right choice of words.

they don't HAVE to start drinking

So it's just like homsexuality. It's a choice. Right?

 

[Attrox]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: Amused
PLEASE. Use your head. Alcoholism is a word. A word used to describe something. It can not be it's own root.

Without craving and loss of ability to moderate, alcoholism does not exist.

BUT, all the other symptoms CAN occur in non-alcoholics who do not crave, therefore are not addicted to the drug.

Alcoholism is a word. No argument there. It is also a disease. I listed all of its symptoms in my previous post. If by root, you mean its cause, then science really doesn't have an answer at this point in time. There are some clues and theories (genetics, environment, etc.) but a lot is still unknown.

I guess it's time you re-wrote all the previous years of medical research and knowledge about alcoholism. You have a lot of work ahead of you.

The problem here does not lie with me, but with you.

You are reading a list of symptoms and side effects, and not understanding that not all of them singularly mean the person is an alcoholic. You are being simplistic.

Let's address them one by one, shall we? We'll start with one that should be rather easy to agree on.

Tolerance.

Do you believe that only alcoholics can build a tolerance to alcohol, and have to drink more to gain the same high? Or can anyone, even those not addicted, gain tolerance to alcohol?

I know from personal experience that ANYONE can gain a tolerance to alcohol.

What say you?

Yep it's true. When I first started drinking my back will have rash and itches like crazy. Fast forward to 2 years ago, I had a boss who always drink after work and ask me to go with him. My tolerance build up and i don't have rash anymore after drinking. After I quit that job, my tolerance went down again because I rarely drink.

The point is if you have addiction tendency to alcohol, don't keep partying and drinking til finally you become really addicted to it.

 

[NL5]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: NL5



Good luck with your sobriety - and I do mean that - I have lost a lot of friends to addiction - it really is sad to watch.

Well, I've been off drugs for nearly 20 years now.

I've been off tobacco for over 3 years.

Good to hear!

Just out of curiosity, and off topic a bit - which was harder to quit?

 

[Attrox]

Originally posted by: Piobaireachd

Originally posted by: BriGy86

Originally posted by: Safeway

Originally posted by: BriGy86
if anything its only a condition, a self indused condition

diseases are cause by viruses

Self induced? Do you know anything about alcoholism? Alcoholism has been shown to be highly hereditary. People become addicted to alcohol just like any other drug, mentally and physically addicted. It is not all self induced. People that are actual alcoholics started out as innocently as you, but their body, due to heredity, demanded more of it. Its like heroin to them.

Self induced is not the right choice of words.

they don't HAVE to start drinking

So it's just like homsexuality. It's a choice. Right?

:disgust:
Self control is the keywords here. You might tend to be addicted to something but you should know about it and control it before it's too late. I know I like to gamble because it gives me rush and I will become really addicted to it if I let myself go. But I choose not to do that. It's NOT a disease.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: Amused
You are reading a list of symptoms and side effects, and not understanding that not all of them singularly mean the person is an alcoholic. You are being simplistic.

The point is that someone who displays all of these symtoms is an alcoholic.

Let's address them one by one, shall we? We'll start with one that should be rather easy to agree on.

Tolerance.

Do you believe that only alcoholics can build a tolerance to alcohol, and have to drink more to gain the same high? Or can anyone, even those not addicted, gain tolerance to alcohol?

I know from personal experience that ANYONE can gain a tolerance to alcohol.

What say you?

I say that tolerance is a much more complicated idea than you make it out to be. There are many kinds of tolerance such as acute tolerance, environment-dependent tolerance and learned tolerance. Tolerance is a warning sign or symptom. You can build tolerance w/o being an alcoholic, although you are increasing your risk of becoming one. However, an alcoholic will have built up some form of tolerance. That is why it is a symptom. Tolerance alone does not define alcoholism. The same goes for any of the symptoms. That is why there is a list. If you exhibit all of the symptoms in the list, you have a medically recognized disease known as alcoholism.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: Amused
You are reading a list of symptoms and side effects, and not understanding that not all of them singularly mean the person is an alcoholic. You are being simplistic.

The point is that someone who displays all of these symtoms is an alcoholic.

Let's address them one by one, shall we? We'll start with one that should be rather easy to agree on.

Tolerance.

Do you believe that only alcoholics can build a tolerance to alcohol, and have to drink more to gain the same high? Or can anyone, even those not addicted, gain tolerance to alcohol?

I know from personal experience that ANYONE can gain a tolerance to alcohol.

What say you?

I say that tolerance is a much more complicated idea than you make it out to be. There are many kinds of tolerance such as acute tolerance, environment-dependent tolerance and learned tolerance. Tolerance is a warning sign or symptom. You can build tolerance w/o being an alcoholic, although you are increasing your risk of becoming one. However, an alcoholic will have built up some form of tolerance. That is why it is a symptom. Tolerance alone does not define alcoholism. The same goes for any of the symptoms. That is why there is a list. If you exhibit all of the symptoms in the list, you have a medically recognized disease known as alcoholism.

The root of alcoholism is addiction. The root of addiction is inability to moderate consumption, plus intense cravings.

An alcoholic can quit drinking, lose tolerance and get over DTs and STILL crave alcohol this making him an alcoholic.

A non-alcoholic can be free of cravings, but because of excessive alcohol intake can gain tolerance and suffer from DTs.

The core of our argument here is you not believing a non-alcoholic can consume enough alcohol to experience tolerance, or DTs. You are, quite simply, wrong. If that person can take or leave alcohol at will, and moderate intake at will without craving it, he is, by definition, not an alcoholic.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: NL5

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: NL5



Good luck with your sobriety - and I do mean that - I have lost a lot of friends to addiction - it really is sad to watch.

Well, I've been off drugs for nearly 20 years now.

I've been off tobacco for over 3 years.

Good to hear!

Just out of curiosity, and off topic a bit - which was harder to quit?

Tobacco. Simply because it's harder to avoid. Cocaine was slightly easier because I had burned all my contacts, and was homeless on the streets by the time I realized I needed to quit.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox

It,s a severe lack of self control and nothing more, a weakness.

Kind of like your over eating.

100% true. I have a weakness, and I eat too much. There is a very important distinction here- It doesn't cause me to eat, I eat because I am weak. The alcoholic is not made to drink, he drinks because he is weak.

So you crave food even when you are not hungry like a Alcoholic craves a drink? If you do it seems like you have some sort of mental problem where as an addict has a physical problem.

 

[shilala]

Originally posted by: iwearnosox

Doctors consider alcoholism a disease. This is through years of disciplined study and examining alchoholics.

PhasmatisNox disagrees. This is through years of nefing on a worthless message board.

That was absolutely beautiful.

 

[Pepsei]

Originally posted by: shilala

Originally posted by: Amused
While it is true that some people are more easily addicted to alcohol, it is STILL a choice to keep drinking, or dry out.

No matter how heavily one is addicted, the CHOICE is still there.
.

Absolutely 100% wrong. Alcoholics have no choice in the matter of drink on any level, at any time, in any situation. Never did, never will. That goes for before picking up a drink, after picking it up, or before they ever took their first drink.

I disagree, it's a form of addiction. People prone to addicition can still have a choice, you know that some people goes to AA all the time? and they become so hardcore about such meetings? well, it can be argued that they shift their addiction from alcohol to attending meetings. Saying they have no choice in the matter is like saying going to AA will never work.

 

[Pepsei]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: Amused
While it is true that some people are more easily addicted to alcohol, it is STILL a choice to keep drinking, or dry out.

No matter how heavily one is addicted, the CHOICE is still there.

I've kicked two of the strongest addictions known to man. Both were hell to go through, but in the end, it was ALL up to me. It was a simple, but agonizing CHOICE to STOP.

In the end, addiction is NOT a disease. It is a choice.

I'd have to disagree here. An alcoholic does not have the ability to choose to stop drinking. They have a PHYSICAL addiction. By not drinking their body goes into withdrawal. Yes, once they have beaten the physical withdrawal, they can physically avoid drinking but considering their often depressed state (most likely caused by their alcoholism), they usually relapse. It's a viscous cycle.

maybe we're talking about two different things here... the choice is a psychological decision. while the body withdrawal is a physical addiction that can sometimes kill you ( I believe alcoholism is the only one that can do that ? correct me if i'm wrong).

so by using the psychological choice, one can find a way to beat that physical addiction.

 

[shilala]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: NL5

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: NL5



Good luck with your sobriety - and I do mean that - I have lost a lot of friends to addiction - it really is sad to watch.

Well, I've been off drugs for nearly 20 years now.

I've been off tobacco for over 3 years.

Good to hear!

Just out of curiosity, and off topic a bit - which was harder to quit?

Tobacco. Simply because it's harder to avoid. Cocaine was slightly easier because I had burned all my contacts, and was homeless on the streets by the time I realized I needed to quit.

I've enjoyed reading your thoughts, Amused.
I think the one thing I've missed is that you're talking about addiction while the rest of us are talking about alcoholism.
Drug Abuse and Drug Addiction are not the same animal as Alcohol Abuse and Alcohol Addiction.
My brother is an addict. His drug of choice (last I knew) was Oxycontin. In his addiction, he's cleaned out his Grandmother's bank account, crawled in my windows to rob my house twice, lost his children, lost his house, lost his woman, the list goes on.
While my alcoholism and his drug addiction had similarities, they were not the same. He's never had a drinking problem. He has always had a problem with drugs.
I've never liked wine or whiskey. I drank beer.
I didn't find the need to rob my Grandmother or steal to support my drinking habit. I don't know how or why addicts will go to such lengths, nor do I know the line of thinking that allows them to get there.
I don't know how we find our drug of choice.
The situation you presented for yourself, a desire to quit, a mind to do it, the ability to make a choice, maybe that's exactly right for an addict, I don't know.
I know for fact that it's not so with the literally hundreds of alcoholics I know personally.
This may be a good reason why Addicts are not called Alcoholics. It may be why I attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings rather than Narcotics Anonymous meetings.
There are a number of cross-addicted (alcohol and drug dependant) members of our groups. One was my sponsor for quite some time. His drug of choice was Marijuana, although he couldn't quit drinking. His mother and father were alcoholics.
He found that NA didn't get it for him, he couldn't relate. He found what he needed to get sober in AA.
I've heard that story at least a half dozen times. I know my brother couldn't relate to AA, or to my alcoholism when I described it to him.
I can relate to an alcoholic immediately, and they to I.
I'm suggesting that although your argument may be valid from a similarity standpoint, but alcoholism is not drug addiction.
Don't fool yourself into thinking it is. You may cheat yourself of finding something that will help you maintain your sobriety.

 

[Amused]

shilala,

Addiction is addiction. Some are more pwerful than others (cocaine and nicotine are considered two of the most powerful) but it's still nothing more than an addiction. The ONLY way it can be stopped is by choice of the addict, or involuntary imprisonment (which never works long term).

No one else can make you stop but you.

Alcohol is a drug. Addiction to alcohol is a drug addiction. Any attempt to seperate the two is wishful thinking and excuse making.

 

[hammer01]

Actaully amused if you die then you typically stop, hence the choice.

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox
Yes. That said, nhe vast majoity of psychology is complete BS. People beleived somatotyping and phrenology for ages while the self-proclaimed experts did.

Who said anything about psychology? Alcoholism is a disease and the vast majority of medical doctors will tell you the same.

So. People think there is a God, too. That proves nothing.

So now we are comparing modern medicine to religion? Wow.

My point is, just because someone thinks or says something doesn't make it true.

 

[thomsbrain]

Originally posted by: brigden
There isn't a moron in this thread in a position to equivically state whether alcoholism is a true disease or simply a self-induced condition.

my thoughts exactly.

as a psychology major, i find myself knowing significantly more about a variety of related subjects than others on this board, but the knowledge is merely enough to allow me to know that i know nothing.

even in the elite academic and professional psychology world, there is rampant debate about this and no agreement.

IMO, Amused is correct about the choice. however, this argument is like saying "i have the choice to stab myself with a steak knife everytime i see one." yeah, you do have that choice, but it would be a tough one to make, wouldn't it? and the choice to stop drinking (or stop shooting up, etc) is about on that level in terms of the possibility for physical and psychological discomfort. furthermore, the propensity for alcoholism (and other addictions) is hereditary. you don't make the choice to be more easily addicted than the next guy.

but you aren't born an alcoholic, you become one through a series of choices to drink, whether to feel good, self-medicate, or escape a stressor. alcoholism runs strongly in my family, but everyone in my particular line of family has ultimately resisted it. there are cousins who haven't. so by making the right choices, you can avoid problems. THAT SAID, everyone in my line of family has had a pretty soft life. no one has been on the street and everyone was raised by parents who cared about them and had the finances to support them. so maybe we made the right choices, or maybe those choices were made for us by our upbringing and social networks.

i should point out that Amused's pointing to himself as "proof" that you can make a choice not to drink and have it work is irrelevant. the Fundamental Attribution Error (capital letters for a reason) in psychology is that we attribute good things to our own abilities and bad things that happen to other people to their lack of ability. in reality, the world is not so nearly within our control. Amused's success is far more likely to be due to a low propensity to addiciton in the first place, his body handling the withdrawl process well, or his addictions not being super-deep to start with, than due to his mental prowess or ability to stick to his guns. I'm talking likelihoods, or course, not absolutes. and alcoholism may not be a "chemical imbalance" but propensity to it is related to the brain's inate reactions to chemicals AND it is often the result of self-medication for other existing chemical imbalances. furthermore, withdrawl is the result of a chemical imbalance (no more booze to balance things!). Amused is right that alcohol is a drug and alcoholism is a drug addiction, of course.

clearly, alcoholism is not a "disease" in the sense we normally use the word, but neither are many other things we call disease. kidney disease is not a disease, but rather a failure. there are very specific brain changes that occur during an addiction, but it is caused by chemicals, not little bugs. on the mental side of things, the APA does not classify addiciton as a mental disorder.

there are argurments on both sides for the usefulness of calling it a disease. on the one hand, it allows alcoholics to retain some self-esteem, which may make it easier to quit drinking. understanding "i have something physically in me that makes it dangerous for me to drink" is an important concept. yet taking the accountability and responsibility out of the situation may also make it easier for a person fall back to old ways without guilt. AA uses this accountability method to help people stop drinking... but i am not aware of any long-term research that prove's AA's effectiveness or superiority over other methods at preventing relapses, and i have vague memories of research that showed AA to not be any better.

so it's 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

and the point is, i've read most of this long thread, and those of you who are arguing most passionately have no idea what the fvck you are talking about (isn't that usually the way it works out?).

 

[beach2nd]

its true i chose tio be drunkd

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: thomsbrain

Originally posted by: brigden
There isn't a moron in this thread in a position to equivically state whether alcoholism is a true disease or simply a self-induced condition.

my thoughts exactly....

Has anybody who agrees with brigden's statement actually read it?