I Am Your Disease

[A Work in Progress]

I Am Your Disease

Very interesting thread, N., glad you bumped it! There is a lot of truth, I think, in what everyone said, here.

Is it a "choice" or is it a "disease"? As one might suspect, it is some of each. The either/or question is misleading. Tea pointed that out, I think. The AA program strongly promotes the "disease" approach, in some ways misleadingly so (I think). For example, the idea that the "disease" progressively gets worse even when a person is not drinking is completely unsupported by any evidence, and it makes no sense whatsoever...

I think of it as a health problem and a compulsive behavior. Some people have a much greater vulnerability to developing the problem than others, partly due to genetic factors. In this way it is similar to some forms of heart disease and diabetes: a genetic predisposition, often along with some environmental factors, coupled with behavioral choices that are very difficult to control (partly because of physiological factors related to the genetic predisposition), produces something that might be described as a "disease."

wip

[Starlight Impress Forever]

I Am Your Disease

Am glad you bumped it, Noelle......thanks.

I wholeheartedly believe the message it conveys, because I now accept that I shall remain an alcoholic until my dying day. Granted, I am sober. But to remain sober, I must never allow myself to forget that the alcoholic in me merely lies dormant, awaiting his chance. A harsh reality but that`s my bottom line and thus my safeguarder.

Star x

[Noelle]

I Am Your Disease

AL is the devil.

[IAD]

I Am Your Disease

[B][Noelle, I fill so dirty ! ha! Will I need shot or something !?! This Disease is it Communicable [/I] [ame=

]

[/ame]

[IAD]

I Am Your Disease

I fill so dirty Noelle. Is this disease communicable ! Ha! IAD. Makes me think of this song....warning: it's hard ! Ha! ( Saliva--Disease.) [ame=

]

[/ame]

[Chief]

I Am Your Disease

I think it's a great post, Noelle.....it's exactly the personality I see in "My Beast"....

Don

[karbihere]

I Am Your Disease

HMM so does that mean the big book of AA is all hog wash?

[karbihere]

I Am Your Disease

Thanks starlight for that reminder, I tell myself that everyday and it is s true. I have to tell my head to shut up and go by my heart

[IAD]

I Am Your Disease

Karbi......AA has worked for a lot of people. I have friends that are in the program. Matter of fact I had one friend ask me if I would help him start up an AA Org. in our church. I told him.....not for me. That does'nt mean it does'nt work, but for some of us......we can't handle it ! 12 steps.....well I just can't see it. But I do respect all they can do.......All I want to say is their is an alternative to AA....I hope it can work for you ! IAD.

[nancy]

I Am Your Disease

To Work In Progress:

Your post was really interesting, one of the best I have seen on the choice vs disease debate. Can you please tell me, is alcoholism always progressive while you are drinking? My experience says no. I have thought that this is also not necessarily true.

[A Work in Progress]

I Am Your Disease

Nancy, I think that most of the serious researchers and clinicians in the field would agree that some aspects or features of the disorder (probably a better word than "disease") certainly do typically worsen while the person is drinking. Most prominent among those would probably be the compulsive nature of the perceived "need" or "desire" or "cravings" for the substance; and the physical problems resulting from consuming large amounts... nutritional problems, certainly, which cause irreversible neuropathy; hypertension (usually reversible, at least somewhat); etc.

But does it necessarily always get "progressively worse," in the way that AA claims? Not necessarily, past a certain point. There are many, many alcoholics or alcohol-dependent people who just have their same 4 or 5 or whatever number of drinks, every single evening, for decades, till they die, probably achieving blood alcohol levels well into the teens (way too drunk to legally drive) every night, without getting "worse" in their drinking patterns. Probably most of us have known a lot of people like that. Hell, I have known a lot of lawyers and judges who were (are) exactly like that.

Of course the hard-core AA people would probably answer by saying that, for those who did not get "progressively worse," they were not "true alcoholics." That's the problem with the AA formula. There is no objectively valid definition of "alcoholic." And, for that matter, the DSM-IV definition is not much better... the whole concept needs to be re-worked...

wip