What makes you think that alcoholism or addiction is a disease?

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At last, common sense. Each of us is 100% responsible for our own choices, period. The blame game is foisted off on us by psychologists and psychiatrists and social science people who make all this stuff up.

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have you ever tried it? trust me, it is

how did you know i thought that!

My colleagues that practice addictionology tell me that there is solid physiologic basis for addiction centered in the hypothalamus. I haven't looked into that literature myself.

When I drink 1 beer then I have to drink 8 more simply cause I got started.

Because you need medical help to stop. It eats your body alive.

They're not, they are just bad habbits, but they have pissed off enough people that they've been called diseases by lawyers who had to do cases for smokers and alcoholics

that's how it's catorgerized personally i think it's a choice

because unfortunately out of control repetivie behavoir, especially when harmful is in the head, the addictive gene.

it must be, our govt gives people money because they are addicted, they call it a disability.

I would guess to say it's an addiction because even thou your parent could be an alcoholic you don't have to be

when my dad started beating me with a metal bat tellin me ill never be as cool as he is, when i was 12
and he keeps drinking but maybe its not a disease lol

It's a disease because it has an organic (body-based) cause, has body-based effects, and is harmful. It is not an *infectious* disease like the flu, but it is as much a disease as heart disease or diabetes. In fact, diabetes is a pretty good analogy, because, like diabetes, alcohol and other additictions can be controlled by what you put into your body, even though the disease itself can't be cured.

Probably due to the fact that the medical community considers them to be so.

The definition of disease is:
1)A pathological condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.
2)A condition or tendency, as of society, regarded as abnormal and harmful.

I'd say both fit the definition of disease, at least from the source I happened to choose. However does the condition fit the definition, or was the definition revised to fit the condition? I do not know.

Regardless of whether they are "diseases" or not...they are harmful to the person dealing with them, and often to their loved ones as well.

Its not a disease. Its just an unhealthy lifestyle and its addiction may take you to the state of being deceased.

It is a disease that is characterized by an addiction. It is not curable but controlable, that is what makes it a disease. People are still responsable for their own actions, if you know you are an alcoholic then you need to stay away from alcohol and if you do drink you have to be responsable for what happends, like a diabetic is responsable if they get too much sugar, but that likely won't kill anyone else, but alcohol can.

My mother was an alcoholic the summer before i turned 12. She could not control herself, she would hide alcohol because people told her she was out of control. The truth was her body would not allow her to function properly without the alcohol. I do agree that in early stages of alcoholism, the drinking regularly, is a choice made by a person, but for people with addictive personalites their body grabs on to the addiction and will make the brain believe it cannot function with out it.
When she would sleep she would twitch and ball her fists so hard that when she'd wake she wouldnt be able to get them undone for an hour or so. This was because of the withdrawl her body was going through.
Alcoholism is a disease.

By reading the AA big book and NA basic text--there are accounts from doctors and psychologists in both that testify to that fact. They way I have heard it described which I can definately relate to is as an allergy. I am allergic to alcohol and drugs. I can recover and function responsibly as long as I don't take that first drink or drug. Just one sets off an allergic reaction, if you will, and I would be off and running, unable to quit. Thank God I've been sober for eighteen months and don't have to live like that anymore.
It's also interesting to note that addiction to alcohol (and drugs) is much more likely in those that have family members that are alcoholics and addicts. Some say that is a learned behaviour, but I disagree- I have a LONG line of alcoholics in my family--but never really spent time with any of them. My immediate family doesn't drink or use. Something to think about.....

Taken from link below:

Medical authorities have established that alcoholism/drug addiction is a disease in which there is a preoccupation with alcohol/drugs coupled with a loss of control over its consumption.

Addiction may be arrested (not cured) by treatment. It is perfectly acceptable social behavior to seek treatment; it is antisocial to continue the denial.

In my opinon it is a disease only to those who choose not to get help.

IN the brain of an hereditary alcoholic, the brain on scan responds to alcohol in the same fashion as heroin in a heroin addict. This is not true of social drinkers. I have no similar hereditary pattern in addicts.

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What makes you think that alcoholism or addiction is a disease?

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