Alcoholism- What is it?
Unfortunately, in our western society at large, there is still much shame and misunderstanding directed towards the alcoholic. Alcoholism is probably one of the most misunderstood diseases ever known to man. AA claims that alcoholism is a mental obsession coupled with a physical allergy. Alcohol is a legal consumable poison that we ingest, some of us put down a drink as soon as we start to feel the effects. Others will want to drink more, once they feel the effects.
Alcoholics Anonymous describes an alcoholic as a person who when he takes a drink of alcohol, it ignites the process of craving, and the alcoholic needs more. One drink is too much, and 1000 drinks are not enough. They go on to say, that the alcoholic has typically tried every form of control know to man. He will drink only at home, never at work, only wine and beer, try controlling the amount of drinks, drinking only on weekends, and we could add to the list without end.
If an alcoholic wants to test himself (Alcoholics Anonymous), let him try to drink only one drink, and stop abruptly. If he can do that, he is probably not an alcoholic. When an alcoholic controls her drinking, she does not enjoy it. When she enjoys her drinking, she can't control it.
The Disease Concept of Alcoholism
The American Medical Association defines alcoholism as an illness or disease. Dr. David Ohlm, an expert in the field of alcoholism, has defined alcoholism as follows:
Alcoholism is a chronic, progressive, incurable disease characterized by loss of control over alcohol and other sedatives.
Chronic: Lasts a long time.
Progressive: Alcoholism goes through a series of increasing symptoms and it does not go away. It gets worse even after long periods of sobriety, and can be reactivated by a single drink.
Incurable: One can not return to normal drinking. One can return to a normal life, but only by stopping drinking.
Disease: A condition in which bodily health is impaired and interferes with the ability of the person to function normally.
Loss of control: Once the alcoholic takes that first drink after a period of being sober or abstinent, he/she can not predict with any reliability whether he/she is going to have a normal or abnormal drinking episode. Therefore, they do not control the alcohol, it controls them.
This is the major factor in defining alcoholism--can one predict their behavior every time they drink?
Rational Recovery does not believe alcoholism is a disease. We do not endorse one belief or the other at newliferecovery.net. If someone shows the inability to control their drinking, at the act is resulting in continued bad consequences, we support what ever method will work for an individual to get a handle on it. To read more about non 12 step approaches to recovery, click here.
Be our partner
newliferecovery.net lists the top drug alcohol addiction treatment centers in the United States, Canada. We do not list all treatment centers, please read our partnership agreement to learn more about listing on newliferecovery.net. Thank you.
