Alcoholism Should really Not Be Viewed as a Illness

Most men and women have a confused concept of alcoholism as a illness that invades or attacks your good well being. Use of such a powerful word such as “disease” shapes the values and attitudes of society towards alcoholics. A important implication of the disease idea is that what is labeled a “illness” is held to be justifiable mainly because it is involuntary. This is not so. Challenge drinking is a habit in which the so-known as “alcoholic” basically has decided that the benefits of drinking outweigh the liabilities it is all a matter of individual selection. An alcoholic participates in or causes many of their own troubles by their behavior and the decisions they make, so why need to they be viewed as helpless victims of a “illness”(Skipper 1)? Alcoholism should not be viewed as a illness, but as an addiction brought about by the alcoholic’s private options.

What is wrong with disease theories as science is that they are tautologies they stay clear of the operate of understanding why men and women drink. Persons seek precise, essential human experiences from their addictive involvement. They can come to depend on such an involvement for these experiences till — in the intense — the involvement is totally consuming and potentially destructive (Peele 146). The concept that alcoholism is a “disease”, which is only typified by the loss of handle, was only sanctioned by the American Healthcare Association in 1956 (Wilbanks 39). The AMA provides the following definition for alcoholism: ” Alcoholism is an illness characterized by preoccupation with alcohol and loss of manage more than its consumption, such as to lead commonly to intoxication if drinking by chronicity, by progression and by a tendency toward relapse. It is normally associated with physical disability and impaired emotional, occupational and/or social adjustments as a direct consequence of persistent excessive use (Langone 27)”. This meant that an alcoholic could now get support in a hospital, just as a individual with a real illness such as diabetes or leukemia would . Furthermore, the use of the words “loss of handle” make it look as although the alcoholic’s cost-free will has just been ripped away from him. On the contrary, there is no evidence that the will of the drinker has been overpowered. Apart from labeling alcoholism as a disease, the AMA has also completed a huge error in stating that alcoholism causes individuals to lose manage more than the consumption of alcohol. This will only negate the reality…

Leave a Reply