Is alcoholism a choice or a "disease"?

[jpizzle]

Is alcoholism a disease, or is calling it a disease a cop-out on responsibility?

[Marie]

first it's a choice but then after awhile it gets out of hand and becomes an adiction- a disease.

[sophist]

It begins as a choice, but if you are sensative to it, it can become a disease. Just like smoking.

[Rod P]

alcoholism is the cop-out on responsibility

[flieder]

I believe that alcoholism just like gluttony is a lifestyle choice. No one is forced to drink to excess or eat to excess. If a person feels it is a disease, they don't take responsibility for their actions.

[medscape]

It was once a choicenow is a diseasethat act of will and voicenow forsaken with easeTurn back the clockthe alcohol, the wastethe moment to stopwas before acquiring the taste

[T-Minus-10]

Everything is a choice. Not to be insensetive to people's problems, but how many drunks would go for a drink if you had a gun and said "take a drink and die?" The trick is to make people aware that they are making the choice even when it seems out of their hand. If you had no choice, how would AA work?

[LittleBarb]

No one CHOOSES to become an alcoholic....you choose to be a social drinker... one or two drinks every so often, then, that amount increases and the times of day increase until it BECOMES an illness because you get to the point where you feel you actually NEED to drink... you feel like you will DIE if you don't drink... THAT is when it turns into an illness--when the DRINKING controls YOU. It's not a cop out on responsibility because an alcoholic has NO CONCEPT of the word REPONSIBILITY when they are clutching hard to a half full bottle of booze. Or their last beer in the case.

[DLW]

It is a disease. The problem comes when you have a college student who blows all his money over a summer on coke and calls himself a hard, street-savvy addict. It's like a person who is feeling blue calling himself "depressed."A dear friend of mine is an alcoholic and an addict. I've known him for two years. He struggles all the time. He's active in the recovery program, lives in a sober living arrangement, goes to meetings 5-7 times a week. He's relapsed twice since I've known him. Absolute abstinence is the only treatment for his condition. His relapses always start when he tells himself that he can handle one drink, or one line. But from there, it won't stop until he detoxes for two weeks in rehab and starts the program over again. He loses all control. Writes hundreds of dollars in bad checks each relapse, becomes highly suicidal, scratches at his skin. It's awful.Part of the problem is that there are a lot of stupid people out there who call it a "cop out on responsibility." That drug users deserve prison sentences instead of treatment. That people abandon them because they just don't understand.It's not that he's dumb, either. He's a brilliant painter, in the art nouveau style. One of the sharpest people I know. Very strong communication skills.He also has a family history of addiction. His parents are terrible gambling addicts.

[Pearl]

I guess at first it's a choice then it becomes a disease. Like any thing else. People do drugs at first by choice then when they get addicted it becomes a disease.

[chris l]

its easy to label it one way or another, i think its more complex. there is a reason for alcoholism, or i should say reasons, that i think are often overlooked. alot of times its a cop out on responsibility, other times its used to bury the past, others turn that way because they cant handle reality. some of the most intelligent people ive known have been gutter drunks because they just couldnt handle the stupidity and carelessness of society. no one looks at that side of it. the go-getter thats making his/her way in the world not stopping to consider the end result of their actions and how they are screwing up the environment, is turning someone far more intelligent than they, into a drunk. why? because they cant stop their stupidity. this world is on a downhill slide, we are ending our own existance. what better reason can there be?

[Joseph G]

An alcoholic does not responnd to alcohol the way a normal person's does.The average person, even if they are getting drunk, will stop drinking. An alcoholic won't. They more they drink, the more their body desires alcohol. They only stop when they run out of money, booze or they pass out. When they come to, the first thing they will want is another drink. An alcoholic's life revolves around alcohol. It is all they think about.Don't confuse alcoholism with "problem drinking." A problem drinker is the person who just gets drunk too often. They still have normal lives. They can drink like a normal person. They just drink too much too often. It seems like it can be the same, but it isn't. If you have ever seen a true alcoholic, you'll know the difference.Joe

[zingis]

Whether or not a choice in the beginning, a person who is alcoholic usually shows painful physical withdrawal symptoms if they try to stop. A physically and psychologically addicted person cannot be judged in the same way as someone with a simple behavioural habit. The word disease may be too strong, but saying that an alcoholic simply chooses to be so is not a fair characterization in any way. Peace

[ỉη ץ٥ڵ]

it is an addictionthe disease is lack of self control

[Bama sweetie]

There is a genetic link to alcoholism as well as you can drink yourself into alcoholism. Its a sick disease, but everyone has a choice whether to drink or not. Some just can not control it and need not to have one drink b/c that is too many and a thousand is not enough.

[Super Kitten]

It is a choice, one can always take it away from the body at any point and stop it, but it can lead to a number of real and actual diseases. I myself and a number of other people and even those that I have known that have drank a number of years and had the shakes when they actually tried to stop have decided in the past that it was no longer a choice for us. I did not drink every day, but when I did drink I could not stop until I was at the point of having a black out, good friends who encouraged me that I was better off without it and knowing those that knew that they were better off without it and wouldn't stop made me want to quit. One may need to be in a "place" like maybe a hospital "temporarily" where they can not get ahold of any of it even then if it is not their choice to stop they will just go right back to it, but drugs will only make the problem different it does not disolve the problem that really exist. It only changes the problem from one substance to another.

[septembersong]

Becoming dependent upon alcohol begins as a habit. When the body and the mind become so habituated that on abstaining one experiences withdrawal symptoms, then you have the disease of alcoholism. This may require medical intervention. However, just as in diabetes, it is up to the alcoholic to take responsibility for himself-or not.