I got into a discussion with my girl today about alcoholism. She is a medically educated girl who holds two bachelor's, one of which is in pharmaceutical sciences, so she is informed on many of the ailments currently known to man more than the average Joe. Our discourse was plain and simple: she believes (according to the leading medical opinion) that alcoholism is a disease - to which I find it an incorrectly applied nomenclature. I argued that for alcoholism to be a disease it has to be something acquired without volition - something caught. Those who drink choose to drink and choose to continue to drink. When someone smokes over the years of their life, it can be expected that they will suffer complications with their lungs, mouth, teeth, and virility. These are scientifically proven results. This however does not infer that smoking in itself is a disease. The act of smoking has consequences to the health of an individual because of the action alone. Imbibing carries the exact same preclusion to the avoidance of smoking to better one's health. You can prevent these symptoms by not drinking. So why do health professionals and the majority of the population consider alcoholism a disease? If it is just the use the of a pejorative definition do demonize the act, then I can sort of get that, but this absolute that has been created by black and white definitions has little to no merit in our progressing understanding of our world.
So, according to these standards of defining alcoholism as disease, why stop at just alcohol or substances that can be "abused"? This "disease" manifests itself in habitual actions that end up changing the overall makeup of an individual's personality, changes how they relate personally, and changes previously enjoyed activities to be focused only on the addiction. This sounds like a religion to me...oh wait!...it is. Belief in god holds the same crux as alcoholism. Any person of faith has an addiction to the endorphin rush they get when praying, worshipping or converting someone to their side. Imagine the happy drunk at a party or in the bar. They LOVE EVERYBODY. They are giving out high fives and hugs like little tracts of religious parables. As long as they're high on their "god", everyone gets along. But who dares anger a drunk? They are unreasonable.
This all has the stink of opinion, even I'll admit that. The only thing I'm beseeching is to anyone who wishes to define someone or something: give your opinion a fair chance to be completely wrong. Don't just look on the other side of the coin, fuck the coin. This new age of open information affords anyone to educate themselves and what would humanity be without curiosity and the quest for knowledge?
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