How lucky we are that our "disease" can be cured simply by not picking up a bottle of booze again...if only cancer patients or diabetics could be so fortunate!
Please people, be honest with yourselves...it's a character defect, like picking your nose in public or not covering your mouth when you cough.
Hi Duane. Alcohol addiction can be called many things: A curse, a desease, a charicter flaw.
How would you describe 'Shell Shock' or 'Panic attacks', both can be treated with the correct medication, both are psychological. Alcohol addiction gets better without the cause of it (Alcohol) just as 'Shell shock, or post combat shock as it's now called) improves once out of the combat zone and panic attacks improve once the cause is removed.
Alcohol addiction is both psychological and physiological. Doctors deal with the physiological side, eg. A detox if required, AA deals with the psychological cause.
Best wishes.
Chris.
__________________
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." -- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989"
Alcoholism is not a character issue it´s a compulsion issue .
Arrogance is a character defect, as is basic ignorance or, in fact, denial. Check out the Dr's Opinion in the Big Book.
That might help.
Just not drinking is not enough for me. I have to work on the emotional, mental and spiritual part or I will surely drink again, therefore causing an allergic reaction. And there is no CURE!
Keep coming back.
Doll
-- Edited by Doll at 21:30, 2005-10-06
-- Edited by Doll at 21:46, 2005-10-06
__________________
* We eventually realize that just as the pains of alcoholism had to come before sobriety, emotional turmoil comes before serenity. *
If someone coughs incessantly in public, with or without covering the mouth, even when they have no physical symptoms to make them cough, and, if they cough to the point of causing themselves damage physically and socially, and still will not quit, it would most likely be called obsessive/compulsive disorder (IE. "mental illness"). Most of O/C disorders are treated with both chemical treatment (to correct chemical imbalances which may be contributing) and through psychotherapy.
I can't decide if mental illness qualifies as an illness, however, until I have consulted with Tom Cruise.
As far as I know, there is no uncovered coughers anonymous, or nostril nugget nabbers anonymous to help those who feel compulsed to perform those functions, even after they discover that the behaviour is harming them. Also, I don't know if the nose jobbers find the behaviour to be life threatening, unless of course, they do it while driving, and suddenly have to slam on the brakes. Or, if they are in up to the last knuckle and picking their brains out.
I have heard that there have been recent discoveries of drugs which help significantly reduce the physical cravings for alcohol by boosting the uptake of serotonin in the brain.
Ultimately, I guess a bad habit (spelled "character flaw") is just a bad habit, until you become so consumed by that habit that you cannot give it up even when you know the social, emotional, and physical damage it is causing. Then it becomes an addiction.
Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
PS. There is a chemical treatment to help "cure" those nose noodlers...cover their fingers in a light coating of hot pepper sauce.
The one rule of AA: Never take yourself too seriously
Peace and Serenity to you all my friends, from an old hippie,
Read the Drs opinion in the Big Book. If it was only a character defeat don't you think it would have been alot easier to have stopped before you got to the point that you feel now?
I am deathly allergic to bees. I carry my epi pen with me at all times, but I also don't go running around trying to attract the bees to me. I make sure that my soaps and shampoos are unscented and I never wear perfume. When i come into contact with a bee I carefully move away from it. But if I get stung, I will die.
AA is my epi pen for alcoholism. It is my medicine for the illness which had me in it's grip for 22 years. I don't hang out in bars or try to act as if I'm just a non-drinker who could drink if she wanted too. Because if I drink again, I will die, a long slow miserable death.
Calling it a "disease" diminishes the responsibility of people like us who for one reason or another choose to drink booze. If a doctor were to tell us that overnight we had developed a serious allergy to alcohol and that we would drop dead if it were to ever touch our lips again none of us would go near it ever again. None of us who are not suicidal and of somewhat sound mind that is.
I think calling it a disease is an attempt to remove the negative stigma associated with being an alcoholic. I think it's another lame by-product of our ridiculously politically correct "I'm okay your okay" society.
Just imagine that your child is lying in a hospital bed vomiting uncontrollably from the chemotherapy treatment that is being used in a desperate last ditch attempt to save them, then some degenerate sonofabitch like you or I staggers in whining that we have a disease because we just cant seem to stop pouring liquor down our throats. Well if you're anything like me you would be removing the drunks teeth with your fist.
We have weak character...not as glamorous as an incurable disease but sometimes the truth really sucks.
"If a doctor were to tell us that overnight we had developed a serious allergy to alcohol and that we would drop dead if it were to ever touch our lips again none of us would go near it ever again. None of us who are not suicidal and of somewhat sound mind that is."
I've personally known some folks who had cirrhosis, and were told they would die if they didn't stop drinking. They died. Other than that, they seemed like pretty normal, nice guys.
I also lost a 3 year old niece to brain cancer. Her parents went through 1 1/2 years of hell, with her surgeries, chemo and radiation treatment. When they buried their little 3 year old girl, the had to find a size 12 dress, because she was so swollen from the steroids she had been given in an attempt to ease her pain. My wife's sister died of stomach cancer at age 41, leaving two teenage daughters and a bewildered husband. Would I equate my alcoholism with their disease? Probably not.
If any alcoholic uses the "disease" discription as an excuse to keep drinking, I'd say that they haven't truly accepted steps one, two and three. On the other hand, if I say that I just need to exercise will power to stop my addictive behavior, I also haven't truly accepted step one. I don't have much chance either way.
Tipsey my friend, if it works for you to call it defective character, and that helps you stay sober, go with it. If it works for others to call it a disease, and THAT keeps THEM sober, then they won't be stumbling into that hospital room drunk and getting me all PO'ed.
i was taught the disease concept in treatment,they have done studies
and i guess the bottom line of those studies is that it is inherited, that if your parents are alcoholics then you habe a better chance of becoming on as well
our brains are different than non-alcoholics and our bodies process alcohol differently which is the biggy
like mentioned above...gotta keep it simple, myself? I can complicate a raindrop...i get caught up in the nitty gritties....
bottom line is my life is simply a mess when i drink and i want to live sober
so...disease, allergy, flaw, i got em all
what matters most is that i don't drink today and i keep working on my Wendy problem, keeping in mind that alcohol is a symptom, its the 'isms' i have to change
You're absolutely right it doesn't matter what we call it, if calling it a disease works for you go right ahead. In my case I believe that avoiding taking responsibility for my choices and actions has always been a big part of my problem. I've always been the youngest child, the little brother, the one who everyone let get away with everything for one reason or another. I know that if I am going to take control of my life I have to look myself in the mirror and say "You phucked up, not your parents, not your friends, not a disease. YOU". I've spent too many years crafting creative excuses for my situation and if I'm going to ever make any lasting change I have to face the fact that I'm so full of shit that I can't even believe a word I say. I don't trust myself to call it a disease because when that voice starts talking in my head telling me that I should drink I don't want to give it the ammunition to say "It's okay buddy, you can do it, it's not your fault, you have a disease! You were born this way."
And many studies have shown that children who grow up with parents smoke have a far higher likelihood of being addicted to cigarettes, and children who grow up in a home with vegetarian parents have a far higher rate of being vegetarians, and boys who grow up in a home with a father who is physically abusive to their mother have a higher than normal rate of being abusive towards their spouse...etc...etc...it's nurture not nature folks.
Tipsy, Bottom line for me is that the only way to arrest the disease or the character defect is to not drink alcohol in any form or fashion. Nada,none,not a sip,and I do that one day at a time and have done it that way ever since Feb. 1985.
Now , when I came into AA 14 years ago, I still had a lot of character defects and through working the 12 Steps some of those defects have gone away, some have lessened and some are worse, I'm still working on those. Now if I choose to drink tomorrow, I will be right back where I was 20 years ago and alot of those defects will pop right back up.I have enjoyed my life sober and don't want to ever drink again, but I have to want to be and stay sober. You know sometimes it's easy to talk about a subject, debate about it and convince ourselves we aren't like other people, we are bigger, badder, worse,better or just don't fit the mold. Well I see to many similarities when we share our unique stories to think I'm different from you, be it a disease or a character defect.
