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How exactly is alcoholism (and drug abuse for that matter) considered a disease?
My dad is a piece of crap alcoholic. The alcoholics anonymous "Big Book" compares alcoholism to an allergy and an illness. Am I the only one who is saying "huh?!" You have to DRINK in order to become an alcoholic, whereas contracting most forms of illness, (with the exception of STD's, lung cancer induced from smoking, etc.) are contracted through no fault of the person stricken with the illness. My dad didn't have to start drinking, he chose to.
Alcoholism is the only "disease" that required the AMA to vote on it to become a disease.
Marty Mann, often (incorrectly) called "the first woman in AA", started the National Council on Alcoholism (now the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence or NCADD). She petitioned the AMA to declare it a disease to fit in with the AA mythology. The doctors approved it, mainly so that they could bill insurance companies for their work with drunks. That's the real reason, economics.
BTW- Bill Wilson called it a malady or illness in the Big Book, never a disease. He went on record, saying it was NOT a disease when asked in 1960, "We have
never called alcoholism a disease because, technically speaking, it
is not a disease entity. For example, there is no such thing as heart
disease. Instead, there are many separate heart ailments, or
combinations of them. It is something like that with alcoholism.
Therefore, we did not wish to get in wrong with the medical
profession by pronouncing alcoholism a disease entity. Therefore, we always called it an illness, or a malady - a far safer term for us to use."