Alcoholism – disease or not?

[IntellectualSaviorParticipant 1238]

I was straight edge before i was a muslim, when i was a kid i’ve lost my uncle to this bulls~~~ cancer. He was a really good man, didn’t harm anyone, worked for his family etc. We were so alike when it comes to personalities. So when he died i made a promise that day that i would never drink nor smoke or do any other addictive stuff. my mom smokes and it saddens me too.

I know there are people who drinks responsibly but i see it like a gun in your hand, one day you can just c~~~ it and shoot it.

I’ve chosen to live my life without it. I can have a lot of fun even in the parties, i don’t need booze to get in the mood, i’m in the mood, i’m the wildest muhf~~~er in the party who blows the roof of the place. Even people who drink loves me for that reason. I think we all can relax without alcohol but everyone can live their life however it pleases them.

Just be responsible that’s all i want, be careful, stay safe and enjoy your life my friends.

When I have a pen in my hands, it's lethal.

[Gravel PitParticipant]

Joller, Tattoodave and Surferdude. To continue the conversation: Please consider my experience. I’m well aware of AA literature though I do not attend. I’m vehemently atheist but became sober over 4 years now. I’ve got a perspective you probably have not heard.

surfdude12 wrote:

The failure rate you’re quoting is including people who don’t even take the suggested actions.

The suggested actions are obscure and religious. Several supreme courts have ruled AA a religion. AA themselves at World Office do not even debate the 5% success rate. Your quote is like saying that those people don’t count unless they count… it ignores the problem that 95% of people who walk into AA, go back out. Less than 1% make it to 2o years sober. AA is dying because it is a religion for white baby boomers who are getting old. Sorry but its true. Its harsh to call it a cult but it is one.

BrainPilot wrote:

So, if you are an alcoholic and you cannot control your own drinking, then what do you do if you want to stop? If your own behavior is beyond your ability to control,

Here is the underlying issues which wraps up this entire thread. Freewill.
People are hesitant to call alcoholism a disease because there is not enough proof of the genetic link yet. To directly answer that question, I refer you to the DSM-IV which to my knowledge still lists alcoholism amongst addiction, a behavioral issue. So the answer is NO, alcoholism is not a disease, yet… eventually we’ll find some more links to the genetics and expand the scientific discourse on the subject. But to argue over what to classify it as is futile.

The issue is FREEWILL and the road to sobriety involves understanding a few things about the illusion of freewill. Why is the alcoholic unable to control his drinking? Is it a matter of his choice? The answer is no, the alcoholic does not have a choice or he would not lead such a tragic life.

Freewill is a notion that has been debunked at length outside of this discussion. No one harbors freewill, period. We’re biologically determined to the gills. Even your so-called day-to-day choices are not your choices. The brain thinks up its own thoughts and your body does its own thing, you’re just along for the ride. This is scientific fact.

Here is the irony. The 12 Steps, as religiously crazy as they are, are aligned with the truth of biological determinism. Step 3 is parallel to admitting you have no freewill. Giving up trying to control. This may be why so many believers are able to get something out of AA. I was atheist and could not find a remedy in AA after several stints.

I did not get sober by realizing that I have no freewill. How could I? Just because a fish realizes he is in a bowl, doesn’t mean he’s found a way to escape. The only way to get sober is to keep drinking more until you either die or get sober. I ended up sober, barely.

The only way we learn to stop putting our hand on the stove is to keep getting burned and then realize what is happening. Sooner or later the brain will catch up and decide for itself if it wants to keep getting burned or not….the ‘you’ is not going to be able to initiate that. Like I said, my solution was not a solution unless you call ‘giving up on any attempt at sobriety and drinking without restraint’ a solution. After a year of that, and progressively mortal dangers accruing, finally I came to a reckoning event. After that, I did not drink. Call it fear of death or whatever you want.

Powerlessness and unmanageability are metaphors for no freewill. AA is Calvinist. No freewill. You can subtract god out of the steps if you want. You don’t even need to do half of them since most of it is just a conversion to Christianity. But the core of it is philosophically deterministic.

Freewill is the common theme in addiction and arguments about it. Ill close by saying that being an atheist is no reason to give up on sobriety…give it one last shot by drinking without restraint. LOL. Give it over to god by buying a six pack today!

3. We made a choice to give our will and our life over to the care of god as we understood him.

3. We came to realize that we have no freewill so trying to control anything was insane.

[Anonymous 0]

Mmmmm. It takes enormous will power to overcome any addiction. Those with little will power may not be served well by being told it is not their fault. I have seen many who have taken responsibility for their choices and have overcome their addictions.
On the other hand, My ex wife who is addicted to pain pills (oxy something) has been fed the narrative that it is not her fault for getting addicted. She is weak and will never overcome this addiction. She is a pill-head for life due to not having to accept any responsibility. So if addiction is a disease, it is a disease that one gets by choice and can be cured by choice. Alas, one cannot simply quit cancer, no matter the level of will power.

[Gravel PitParticipant]

I have to argue against this, sorry: (Before I launch into it, I agree with the overall crass attitude that punks should be accountable for themselves and get off their ass and do better; but that is not at stake here, some serious misunderstandings about addiction in general should be addressed)

Anonymous wrote:

It takes enormous will power to overcome any addiction. Those with little will power may not be served well by being told it is not their fault. I have seen many who have taken responsibility for their choices and have overcome their addictions.

1. There is no freewill. The notion has been defeated objectively, subjectively and philosophically over and over and over. It’s been beat to death, period. Anyone fronting that people have “choice, responsibility, will…” and many other notions — in the strictest sense, these notions have no face value and are delusions or weak representation of reality.

2. It really doesn’t matter if people think it’s their fault or not, they still have zero freewill. As far as “taking responsibility,” there is a major difference between what we’re responsible for and what we’re accountable for. Your pill popping ex-wife, like all addicts and alcoholics, isn’t objectively responsible for her actions in this causal, bio-deterministic universe. She no more choose to be an addict than she chooses which days will be cloudy. Likewise, a dog doesn’t choose to be aggressive or to wag its tail. This doesn’t mean that addicts and criminals aren’t held accountable for their behavior. But to insinuate that they chose that life or are responsible for it, can’t be held up to scrutiny.

3. No one overcomes addiction. They either fork the river of craving into other substances, get locked up out of reach, die of their use or they have a mental breakthrough where something so bad shakes them to their core as a result of their behavior while simultaneously getting cut off from their substance for long enough that they withdraw from the physical cravings. Addicts and alcoholics, very few recover, but the ones that do aren’t cured, they just fell luckily into a double whammey type of scenario where they couldn’t get drunk, and what they went through caused a psychic change, a rearrangement of their neurons if you will. They see the other side and do not wish to go back so they do not use. This no more a choice than its a choice to not put your hand on a hot stove. Its a reaction, an instinct for survival.

Anonymous wrote:

So if addiction is a disease, it is a disease that one gets by choice and can be cured by choice. Alas, one cannot simply quit cancer, no matter the level of will power.

I get what you’re intending, that disease (as in Cancer) is legitimate while a “dis-ease” as in alcoholism, is malingering of a sort. I get it. The answer is irrelevant because freewill doesn’t exist. Yes, a bunch of wussies with no sand continue to play victim and excuse themselves into using. Its pathetic. But also, its true that they’re trapped in a near inescapable pattern of biology and reality. They are genetically screwed, they are physically dependent on a substance in a society that makes it easily accessible.

They lack the recklessness to cause a ‘last drunk reckoning’ type of scenario like a terrible car accident or near fatal suicide attempt. Its sort of like the water planet in Interstellar that is too close to the black hole — not enough can happen; events like comets infused with glacial bacteria can’t reach the planet and kickstart evolution. The planet stays trapped in non-life. Addicts and alcoholics of a certain character can’t reach the events necessary to escape addiction. They constantly touch-n-go with disaster but never stay in in long enough to effect a change.

Believe me, I’m a gung-ho former 0311 (oorah for your avatar) so I give no pass to weak ass drug abusers. But I’m also a thinking man and a recovered alcoholic myself. Accountability and Responsibility are two different things. And I know this is fairly deep philosophical stuff, but words like “responsibility, choice, will power” have little relevance in a causal universe. This is precisely why we have words like “try, discipline, learn” etc… those words give away the fact that we have no freewill. If we did have freewill, then not being able to quit smoking or drinking would be as simple as just no doing it. We’d never have to try to do anything, we’d just do it.

Only what occurs to us to do, is what we can do.

[harpo-my-“SON”Participant 2410]

The only disease that when contracted causes people to verbally attack you.
I never heard of anyone running up to a person and screaming at them Hey motherf**ker you got lupus.

I was bound to be misunderstood, and I laugh at those who misunderstand me. Kind mockery at the well intentioned, but unfettered cruelty towards those would be prison guards of my creative possibilities. This so as to learn as much from misunderstanding as from understanding. Taking pleasure in worthy opponents and making language fluid and flowing like a river yet pointed and precise as a dagger. Contradicts the socialistic purpose of language and makes for a wonderful linguistic dance, A verbal martial art with constant parries that hone the weapon that is the two edged sword of my mouth.

[Author]

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