Setesh wrote:Funny that, no they don't, the AMA's official stance (that they put forth in 1957) says its a mental illness. Here's a psychologist who specilises in addiction, who most definatly says no it isn't:
http://www.peele.net/faq/disease.html
A 1997 Gallop poll found that almost 90% of Americans believe that alcoholism is a disease. In contrast, physicians’ views of alcoholism were reviewed at an August conference held by the International Doctors of Alcoholics Anonymous (IDAA). A survey of physicians reported at that conference found that 80% of responding doctors perceived alcoholism as simply bad behavior.
So the official line and what doctors in the field belive are not the same.
So in other words, you're nitpicking over the specific definition of the word "disease", as if calling it a mental illness makes any practical difference.
I also like how you quote Dr. Hobbes's article to get the numbers of physicians who believe alcoholism is the result of "bad behavior", and fail to quote any
other part of the article, like this one:
Alcoholism should not be judged as a problem of willpower, misconduct, or any other unscientific diagnosis. The problem must be accepted for what it is—a biopsychosocial disease with a strong genetic influence, obvious signs and symptoms, a natural progression and a fatal outcome if not treated.
Or perhaps this part:
During the past 35 years, numerous studies by behavioral and social scientists have supported Jellinek’s contentions about alcoholism as a disease. The American Medical Association endorsed the concept in 1957. The American Psychiatric Association, the American Hospital Association, the American Public Health Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the World Health Organization and the American College of Physicians have also classified alcoholism as a disease. In addition, the findings of investigators in the late 1970s led to explicit criteria for an "alcohol dependence syndrome" which are now listed in the DSM IIR, DSM IV, and the ICD manual.
Source:
http://www.physiciansnews.com/commentary/298wp.html
You can Google and Wikipedia your way from one end of the Internet to the other and find whatever you need to support your position. So can I. If you want to say from the evidence you've seen, the disease model of addiction isn't convincing, fine. There are medical professionals on both sides of the debate. But stating your opinion as a
settled matter is simply nonsense.
Actually except for certain mental disorders it doesn't fit the model of a disease at all. And if its a disease why can people quit on willpower alone? You can't stop schizophrenia through willpower. You can suppress OCD symptoms to a degree (after all I do) but you still fall back into it.
And where precisely in the medical defintion does it state any condition that can be overcome by willpower is not a disease?
Difficult yes, impossible, bullshit. That's the very atitude AA pushes, that you aren't strong enough to do it yourself, that's why you need a "higher power". That's why so many AA people fall off the wagon. This view allows you that leeway that it isn't your fault. So you hold no responsability if you fail.
For some people, it is practically impossible. Call it lack of willpower or whatever you want, but some addicts cannot beat their addiction on their own.
And I see you entirely failed to address the specific problem longterm alcoholics face in trying to quit cold turkey: namely, they risk death from withdrawal. Where does that fit in your homemade defintion of disease?
P.S. as far as I can uncover via google AA's success rate is indeed the same as cold turkey quitters. Though in my search I found this:
"Cult or Cure"
I'll see your Google and raise you the library of the University of Pennsylvania.
Um, okay, you have a source but have you used it? Penn&Tellar quoted AA's
own report on their success rate, I found the same report. 5% total success, exact same result as
no help at all.
Yes, I have, in designing a hypothetical addiction recovery support system for high school students returning to school after inpatient rehabilitation. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to the online library, so I can't provide links to the relevant articles, having graduated from the program. So I'll drop this line of argument, since it's tangental to the main thrust of our exchange anyway.
