The ideal diet, according to Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at Harvard School of Public Health, includes an alcoholic drink every day. In a study of aprox .5 million people by the ACS, those with the greatest longevity were folks that regulary had 2 drinks a day. A British study suggests 3-5 glasses per day as healthy consumption. Alcohol is known to be more effective than Statin drugs at reducing serum cholesterol. On the other side of the argument, I doubt you will find an EAP or rehab councelor, or devout 12 step abstainer that would agree regular daily drinking is healthy. So which is it? Is Alcoholic simply a derrogatory term applied by people of a religious temperence mindset to those that like to imbibe much as “heathen” is applied to disbelievers? Or is it a medical condition? If it is a medical condition, what constitutes it? Physical withdrawl? Habitual usage? How much is too much? How much is too little?
Alcoholism is the addiction to alcohol. People who have developed this addiction should not drink but that does not mean that everybody is an alcoholic. For those of us who drink in moderation A glass of wine with our meals has been shown to be beneficial.
This has been discussed in depth before and you can find the threads if you search.
frithrah - if you are in Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism is a disease. A cunning and patient disease that will never stop hunting you down…
If you are not in AA, and quit it is just something that you have chosen to limit or abstain from in your life.
Alcoholism, to me, is an addiction to alcohol. Where your body actually needs it on a regular basis - say everyday. When you go off it, you experience withdrawal symptoms that can in severe cases kill you.
I worked in an in-patient psych ward when I was in college - I won’t say how long ago - and a man cam in with severe alcohol withdrawal, we gave him adivan 5mm and sent him to bed. He died that night from severe DT’s undiagnoised by the head nurse. She lost her license and he died.
He was roughly 55, completely jaundis when he posted and having minor epileptic shock symptoms. He should have been in the ER but was in the Psych ward instead…
How much will cause a problem, I’d say heavy drinking everyday for more than 15 years will probably do some damage.
IANAD, but would say limiting and moderation should be fine for most healthy individuals.
The thing is AFAICS the definition of alcoholism is very fluid. I’ve seen people calling other people alcoholics for just drinking a lot.
I drink a lot when I can afford it and have the time. When I don’t have either I don’t drink. No problem. I and my friends were called alcoholics in the US by two people because we were on the piss every night and trying to drink the state of Vermont dry. That’s what business/holiday trips with a corporate Diners Club Card and quite good per diems(sp?) are for IMO 
I don’t view it as a disease. I view it as an addiction. The same as Valium/Crack/Heroin etc. That doesn’t take anything away from the problem it just labels it correctly IMO.
Oh and I realise it’s not good for me BTW but either are a lot of things I do. It’s my life after all and I’ve no kids etc. to worry about.
For some people, it acts like a disease.
Really, it’s more like these people have an allergy to it. Alcoholism is the syndrome caused by drinking.
It’s kind of like poison Ivy. Some people aren’t allergic to the plant, but given enough exposure to it, they can become allergic. I think we can all agree that given enough drinking, we could each become addicted right?
I don’t think it’s a disease in the purest sense of the word, but if it’s helpful for someone who suffers from alchoholism to think of it as such to help their recovery, then call it whatever you want.
IMO alchoholism and alchohol addiction are two different things.
There probably are some people who meet the currently accepted theory of alchoholism, i.e. that once you are an alcoholic you will be one all your life even if you never touch another drop, and if you ever do touch even a drop, you are sure to go on a binge and drink to unconsciousness, reverting to the worst state you were ever in.
However, there are also many people (especially college students) who are addicted to alchohol in the sense that they drink every day, often to excess, and find it very difficult to go more than a few days without a drink.
Then someday, either as a conscious decision or due to a general change in lifestyle, they cut back until they don’t need to drink regularly and don’t drink enough to get wasted, but still enjoy some occasional social drinking. Or perhaps they find themselves in some situation (such as military duty, or illness) where they can’t drink, but they get used to it without too much trouble and when the situation is over go back to occasional drinking but not to excess.
This - the idea that one can be temporarily addicted to alchohol without being a life-long alchoholic - is a politically incorrect concept, and I expect to get flamed for it, especially since I have no cites. But I KNOW this is possible because I have experienced it myself and seen it in my friends.
Ah, yes, the entire board trembles at the thought of being flamed by the great norinew. Oh, wait, no they don’t. Well, nevermind. I wasn’t going to flame you anyway! I have also seen the phenomenon you’re speaking of. My father was an alcoholic. He was sober in AA from 1975, until he died less than two months ago. I have a BIL, OTOH, who drank quite excessively when he was younger, often to bad ends, and had trouble staying sober. When it became really inconvenient for him to drink, however, he stopped. After not drinking for several years, he went back to drinking occasionally. The terminology I’ve always used is this: my father (who could never have gone back to drinking occasionally) was an alcoholic. My BIL was a problem drinker (he’s also an asshole, but that’s a whole 'nother story!:))
But I don’t think the difference in my terminology and yours are relevant. I believe we’re talking about the same thing, and I agree with you.
OK, after I posted that, it occurred to me that I never addressed the OP. I believe that for most people, drinking in moderation can be healthy. But for people who are permanently addicted to alcohol, they cannot choose moderation. For them, it’s all or nothing. Therefore, whatever health benefits may be gained by moderate drinking are outweighed by the health risks of excessive drinking. Alcoholics are much better off not drinking at all!
From http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=disease
Disease -
- 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.
Alcoholism meets these criteria. There are two components to an addiction physiological, and psychological. In the case of some substances of abuse (for example cannabis) addiction is primarily psychological. Alcohol addiction on the other hand has a very strong physical component; this is caused by the body altering its biochemistry to oppose the effects of the alcohol. If the individual concerned suddenly stops the intake of alcohol the results can be (as other poster’s have already pointed out) fatal. The physical component can be overcome when a patient “dries out” but the psychological need remains, for vulnerable individuals this can remain for a lifetime. The psychology of this is very complicated and way out of my area of expertise.
Alcohol addiction is much more common than many people realise, it is for instance perfectly possible for an alcoholic to never become intoxicated. Basically if you find yourself drinking at unusual times (in the morning and throughout the day) or if you find that you are unable to stop drinking for any period of time then it is likely that you may have a problem. If you are experiencing severe side effects when you stop drinking you should seek help urgently, as trying to stop your intake of alcohol “cold turkey” style can be very dangerous. Excessive drinking in college is not necessarily a sign of alcoholism, but it might lead you to develop more serious problems later in life.
I think a better debate would be if Communism is a disease…
So where in lies the distinction between them. Was this simply a choice on your father’s part? Do you feel he had a genetic predisposition preventing him from social drinking? It is easy to say that someone I knew was in this category, and someone else in another. People are quick to divide folks into these camps but the question is what distinguishes them? Is it self analysis? How they identify themselves? Could your dad have blown off the prognosis imposed upon him and been a social drinker if he felt like it and applied self limiting rules accordingly? Or is there some other distinction you allude to but don’t state explicitly? Why is excessive consumption a surmountable phase for one but not the other? What makes the distinction?
IANAExpert, but my take on this would be that my father was physically addicted to alcohol, but my BIL wasn’t. BIL simply liked it too much for his own good, resulting in what I guess you could call an emotional addiction, but lacked the physical addiction. Therefore, when he got the emotional addiction under control, he could resume social drinking.
As for the genetic predispostion, last I heard, even the experts still didn’t know. To the best of my knowledge, my father’s father was a very heavy drinker, and a mean SOB to boot, but I don’t know if he was an alcoholic. I know that at least one of my father’s sisters was an alcoholic.