Hi Canary,

I got the disease part when my AH had a stroke last year. He was in a rehab hospital so he could get his cognitive function, walking, balance, and daily activities back. He did not for a while remember that he drank alcohol or had a desire for it. Every day he asked me to wheel him to the shop to buy chocolate bars. Lots of them. I realize now he was craving at such a raw physiological level that he would feed the craving with anything. There is also evidence that chocolate works on the same receptors as alcohol, though with far less effect. When this happened, and he couldn't remember much of our life together, I realized he indeed had a disease. The craving is so strong, it makes "choice" a very difficult thing.

Hugs to you, Rocky

Aloha Canary!!

The AMA manual on diseases list alcoholism as a primary disease with its own pathology
and not a sympton of any other known disease.  Mental health has long said that the
alcoholic doesn't drink because they have problems but have problems because they
drink that way.  I have learned from experience that the alcohlic drinks the way they do
because they cannot not drink. (compulsion)  When I got into the Al-Anon Family Groups
I thought the same way you do and on top of that because I am chemically tolerant I
believed my alcoholic wife was focusing on drinking anytime, any place and with any one
else soley to hurt me.  Why else would she do it?  I thought of her as a bad peron and
not a sick one.  Great condition trying to live life with a wife I thought of as bad and
malicious.  I didn't know that this disease is driven by compulsion and that because of this
the alcoholic has lost the ability to chose when to and when not to drink. Alcoholism runs
the man, the man doesn't run alcoholism.   I came to accept this as a disease that often
results in insanity and death after asking the question over and over "why does she drink
that way?"  and then listening to and watching her suffer when she couldn't.  She wished
that she didn't or would stop and then would go thru every hoop and hurdle to
accomodate the alcohol.  

As a nurse who most likely has a higher education on the human person and physiology
and such you may be fixed on the idea that because we should be in control when we
aren't there is something mentally or morally wrong with the alcoholic.  I was that way
until I accepted that alcoholism is a primary disease and then I went to college to learn
as much about chemical addiction as I could.  I would suggest reading "UNDER THE
INFLUENCE" by James R Milam Ph.D  and Katherine Ketcham.  It is still used as a text
in college courses on addiction.  

That your alcoholic enjoyed 8 years of sobriety and then went back out is one of the
signs of alcoholism that is called relapse.  Relapse is astounding for many reasons but
for me because the alcoholic starts drinking again where they left off and not where
they started.  The mind, body, spirit and emotions want to do catch up with the
relationship with alcohol often in a short time they are worse off than before.

What disease has a bottom?  I believe all of them do when you consider that no one
wants a disease they have no control over and often points the way to their own
demise in spite of their wishes.  The bottom comes when the alcoholic surrenders, gives
up and reaches out for help.   When that happens they will not cease to be alcoholic.
They will start being alcoholic with a honest willingness to be sober before anything else.
They will want to live.

Nursing rates number 1 on the top of the list of people in the "helping professions"
who are most trusted and relied upon.  A practicing alcoholic and the disease of
alcoholism unarrested, will not care about who you are, what you do, why you do it
or for whom.  It has one desire and focus only drink...as often and as much as can
be tolerated at the particular time.  I mentioned that I am chemically tolerant.  I also
said that I was married to an alcoholic wife that use to stump me with her drinking.
I have to honestly say that she often wished she could drink like me.  That would have
cost her her life.  I almost lost mine.

You might not be alcoholic.  He sounds like he is.  Stick around and read those who
also post here and their involvement with the disease of alcoholism.  Al-Anon and
MIP and the people here can help you understand and become aware.

This has been a longish response.  I've been around for a while.  Keep coming back
it works when you work it.

(((((hugs)))))

It is a disease like no other. It is not a simple physical disease. It is mental and spiritual. It doesn't only wound and kill the A it wounds and kills us, the ones who are intimately connected to the A.

It is a disease. But it is not like a cancer or a diabetes.

I understood it was a disease when I was a little kid and I watched my uncle die from it. It was so obvious to me. I had only ever known him in the middle and end stages of the disease. I watched him fall, slur, forget, smell, rot from the inside out. I saw him have seisures when we watered down his vodka. I watched his wet brain progress to the point where he no longer had control over his bodily functions and he would appear drunk even if he had not had a drink in hours. I understood it was a disease when he bled out of every opening in his body because his brain was so pickled that his organs shut down. Obviously it was a disease because I understood that no one would chose to live and die that way. No one.

It was much harder for me to understand that my young, handsome, strong husband had the exact same disease. The pain my husband caused me didn't jive with the rotting, sad drunk my uncle was. My husband knew better. He was well versed in AA. He could tell you all about the pain he suffered because of his A father. But yet, he has the disease. It made me so angry. I quit drugs and drinking why couldn't he? Because he has the disease of alcoholism.

I finally "got it" when I watched him almost die from an overdose. I saw him lose everything he worked hard for and loved (me, his kids, his home and his job) and he just couldn't stop. I knew he loved us and yet it the disease was bigger. He made the very first choice to pick up, but after that, he had no choice in the matter. None.

When I think back to the way my uncle was treated by my mother and grandmother I see why he believed it was a choice. They would say to him all the time "if you loved us you would stop" and he couldn't. On some level, he must have believed that he wanted to be like he was otherwise he would simply stop. The truth is, he couldn't stop.

It isn't a choice, it isn't fun. The chemical reaction an A brain has to stimuli (alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling) is different than the reaction our non-A brain has to the exact same stimuli.

Disease or no, we have the choice to live with it or not.

Amen, amen, amen to that.  Unbelievable, isn't it. So the disease is making him go for the drink instead of driving right home.  It can overcome any feelings of guilt, love or respect for the family KNOWING that it will devastate the people who love him. He is willing to lose everyone over it.
My AH called me to tell me that he was drinking and that he would be right home after getting the Chinese food. He said, "what is the big deal?"  He got out of rehab 5 months before that.

For me, all I had to see was my (then) AW passed out at 9:30am on a weekday, having consumed a full bottle of vodka, when I accepted that this MUST be a disease, because surely nobody would ever "choose" to live like that....

The more important "aha" moment was provided by my wise old sponsor, who alikened this to one of those "why vs what" questions, and told me to stop fretting about whether it is a disease or not, cuz even if I DID know the answer to it, it really would NOT change anything.....  He would remind me, over and over again - it is not good, nor is it bad.... it just is.....

Take care
Tom

I'm going to say what I always say when this comes up.

Does it matter?

It's classified as a disease by the medical profession.  The AA Big Book gives some wonderful examples that illustrate the insanity of alcoholism - if you believe insanity to be a disease.  The various nuances can be debated and that's interesting in and of itself, but - I don't believe that embracing and acknowledging the "disease concept" is necessary in order for an alcoholic to begin recovery... or for we in Alanon to begin our own recovery.  Arguing disease is it/isn't it is a diversion from what we need to do, which is the same whether it is or isn't.

Alcoholism could be a disease, or a character flaw, or a form of insanity, or demonic possession, or alien abduction, or genetic...  working the steps is the same regardless.  I know people with many years of sobriety who will argue for or against the disease concept... and I also have seen many who can't get past the disease concept who can't get sober, or who can't get the benefits of Alanon because they have to have it all figured out first.  Put one foot in front of the other and see what happens.  You'll find your beliefs will take care of themselves along the way, and you'll develop your own opinion to take to the table... or keep to yourself.

Barisax