Question: What about people whose condition has advanced to the point where alcohol withdrawl is life-threatening? Yes, safe treatments are available - but I have a hard time looking at a man chugging cheap vodka from a paper back to ward off grand mal seizures as someone who’s simply making bad choices. That fellow is spending much of his time scared shitless - frankly, he reminds me more of Alex DeLarge in “A Clockwork Orange” than anything else.
The harmful effects of long-term football playing isn’t on par with the effects of long-term unchecked diabetes or alcoholism. :dubious:
That’s like saying, I’m in denial about having big feet. Because of this denial, I am going to stuff my size 12 feet into a size 10.5 shoe. This is “shoe disease” because I will suffer harmful effects in the long run from the effects of doing this.
Well, they are neurotransmitters and receptors that are comprised of the pockets of proteins to which alcohol combines.
Ha ha ha ha ha you’re precious.
Please, never come to the UK or Ireland. Your little head might drop off: I’d say that by your definition, about 90% of the relationships here extant (and the offspring thereof) are “sad in every sense of the word”.
I’m aware that my perspective may seem harsh. That is probably because I see substance abuse through the eyes of a lawyer, with experience in family and criminal law. I mostly deal with consequences rather than treatment, other than advising certain clients to seek treatment from any reputable provider. I spend a great deal of time attempting to protect the children of substance abusers. That’s where I’m coming from.
No, they are not proteins in any sense or understanding of the word. They are neurotransmitters which can BIND to receptor proteins, but they are NOT proteins themselves.
So are you saying that when faced with a person who might or might not have an alcohol problem and the question is what he might do to address that issue, you are either unequipped or unwilling to change your perspective in order to offer advice in a manner that’s most likely to help him succeed in overcoming his difficulties because you can’t for a moment abandon the perspective of a wife or a child, who, so far as you know, doesn’t even exist?
Agreed 100%. No “powerless” HP bullshit. It’s a choice – and one, as you mention, that can done under controlled circumstances should you choose to indulge.
No idea under what criteria you’d be labeled as having the “alcoholism disease.” Again, want to get plastered now and then? Go for it – just make sure you do it under the safest, common-sense conditions.
See Oakmister’s post for more detail.
Having said that, I have little doubt that drug-addiction – alcohol obviously being one – is a very real and damaging issue for both those directly involved and their loved ones. But I certainly refuse blanket statements such as the “disease model” and the whole AA pantload – which does a hell of a lot of harm on its own. Should be (and is) a case by case scenario, where the treatment is based on the needs of the individual. No silver bullet to be had – not even a godly one.
Along those lines, Cognitive-Behavioral therapy and its offshoot REBT, are as good a place to start dealing with your problems – not just addiction, but rather all sorts of mal-adaptive behavior – as any. “Problem” is, there are literally billions of dollars tied into the recovery business and the 12 steppers have close to a monopoly on it. I don’t expect for them to give that up without a fight…
Anyway, here’s a good primer on RETB and its founder: Albert Ellis
My apologies beforehand if he appears to make a lot of (secular) sense. And he does.
I’ve been around and around the alcoholism question (and just finished rehab for the second time) and I can see some truth in the addiction-as-disease model.
I can also see some truth in the fact that I was suffering from severe PTSD but didn’t know it, was 10,000 miles from the U.S., had a job where I had to go into minefields and refugee camps and go to the excavation of mass graves and the only way I knew to push those images away was by drinking so I didn’t have to feel for a few hours. After the 12/26/04 tsunami hit, I was too busy to think about drinking, so I left it alone for a couple of years.
My PTSD got worse when I went to Afghanistan and had another crappy job where I had to go into minefields, talk to people about how their village was destroyed by the Taliban, go to more mass graves, etc. I made the choice not to drink while I was in country, even though it was readily available. Would a shot of Jim Beam made the thought that every time I went outside the wire the last easier? Maybe, but it also would have slowed my reflexes, which I needed.
Once I was in a place where the war wasn’t, I started drinking again, which was a bad idea, as I was now drinking to push away all the crap I had seen --including three of my friends getting killed in front of me-- and it got out of hand.
My experience with AA has been that if you want to quit, there’s a lot of support. it has elements that I dislike, particularly the powerlessness.
For me, I drank for comfort and anesthesia. That works a little, but ultimately it’s not sustainable.
I feel better not drinking. I don’t have to worry about what I might do and what I might regret. I miss being able to have a few beers with the guys, but honestly, I saw a few beers as a prelude to heavier drinking.
I’ve made my peace with the fact that I can’t drink normally or socially. Therefore, I leave it alone.
When we talk about negative effects, especially in N. A., we are talking about losing jobs, divorce, loss of custody, auto crashes, accidental overdoses, being shunned by family and friends, prostitution, tatoos you don’t remember getting, homelessness, gun shot wounds, absesses, Hep C, repeated prison terms…
If none of these apply to you, then hey!, keep doing what you’re doing! Have fun! 
I see. Thanks for the explanation. It still alters how they function significantly, which is what I was trying to say.
I think that’s why they use the word. They don’t say, “It’s a disease, so it’s not my fault!,” which seems to be the major objection to the term.
Rather, they use the word “disease” in order to make clear that they have a different reaction to alcohol than most people–they lose control. So they shouldn’t drink at all. It’s really more semantics, than anything.
I’m a tough love kind of guy. Some say I’m a hard ass. Maybe that’s true. I do not believe that offering excuses for addicts to dodge personal responsibility is productive. An addict is going to lose every time, unless and until he completely buys in to wanting to be sober. Even then, he might lose. Addiction is hard to beat.
I smoke. I’m an addict. I’ve tried to quit several times. I failed. I didn’t have the necessary commitment to beat it. I know full well what smoking is doing to my body. I also know that I choose to smoke for now. I make that decision every time I light up. Maybe next time I’ll make it. Until then, playing the “it’s not my fault” card is a copout. It is my fault. And it may kill me. Same as any other addict.
Regardless of where your perspective comes from, you are wrong. I’ve provided numerous cites in previous threads about alkies. I am pretty sure you were in those threads.
Here is a question for you. If alcoholism is nothing but a personal choice and an individual weakness, why does it affect identical twins? And before you pull out the ‘well, they obviously learned it as kids’ it is all nurture bit, it affects identical twins even when the twins were separated at birth and raised apart. I’ll dig up the cite later but the first major study was called the Scandinavian adoption study. IIRC, the odds of one twin being an alkie was 75% if the other twin was an alkie. Note, these are in twins raised apart. The actual rate if there is not a genetic link should be about 5%.
Additionally, the chances of a child being an alkie increase greatly if one of the parents is an alkie, even if the child is adopted. If an adopted child has an alkie for a parent, the odds of the child becoming an alkie increase by about 90% IIRC.
I’ll hunt up the cites later.
Slee
Don’t bother for my benefit. Sure, someone may have a higher statistical chance of becoming an addict…but substance use and/or abuse remains a personal choice, and carries with it personal responsibility.
It’s definitely a choice. The way to beat it, is to choose not to drink - which millions of sober alcoholics have done.
Genetic predisposition? Sure. They are still capable of making choices.
I have several addict friends, who tell me that the “recovery” industry is mostly bogus. Some of them have gone to three or more rehabs with no success–all with prestigious medical staffs, etc.–and all obscenely expensive. But you shouldn’t conflate the rehabs with “12 steppers,” even if they use 12 steps in those bogus facilities. AA and NA themselves are not making a bunch of money. The actual meetings–outside of the rehabs–are free, usually in a church or hospital that donates the space.
This is an example of the oversimplification and failure to understand chronic genetic diseases that echoes many peoples’ sentiments when it comes to an obese person’s choice to eat the amount of food that has led them to their condition. Many factors go into an alcoholic’s decision to drink, some of which are not really under the conscious control of the alcoholic; just like the decision the overeat includes factors that are out of the control of the obese person.
This is not to say an alcoholic cannot ever become free of drinking; but it is not a matter of willpower alone.
Yeah, it actually IS a matter of will power alone. Whether it be with the help of a 12 step program, medication, therapy or what have you it is still up to the person, and up to them alone, to not take that drink or eat that [insert food here].
Medications and therapy aren’t magic - the person has to want to quit.
Saying it is out of their control is a cop out. Controlling their drinking once they begin, yeah - that’s out of their control. But picking up that first drink is their decision.
Questions about Resisting 12-Step Coercion
Agree, disagree, those are the facts. Again, it’s a multimillion dollar industry with a near monopoly.