LogFAQs > #936897916

Jen0125 posted...

I think the terminolgy is debated. Some people will stop using the label if they feel they no longer have a drinking issue. Some people think once and alcoholic always an alcoholic.

A lot of it depends on which treatment system or rehab program you're going through. Some will argue that "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic" (and in that context, you'll hear phrases like "dry drunk" used), and some go even farther and argue that you literally cannot get clean unless you give up all pretense of self-determination in favor of placing yourself in the hands of a higher power (most 12-step programs).

Plenty of people would argue that it's possible to scale back from problem drinking to casual drinking or social drinking, mainly because there are people who've absolutely done it. Though alcoholics who went through a more severe time before rehabbing tend to want to go all-or-nothing because there's a fear of relapse. Why keep trying to drink, when you don't actually require alcohol, and you're risking loss of control by doing so? Better to just stay clean and sober. And most rehab programs tend to reinforce that mindset, where they treat any lapse of control as a blatant failure (which in turn, ironically, may make full relapse more likely).

For similar reasons the idea of "alcoholism as a disease" tends to be somewhat controversial. It was mostly adopted in the first place to keep people from being vindictive towards alcoholics (turning "this is the result of your own bad choices" into "this is an illness you cannot help, only treat"). But it really doesn't function like a disease, per se - it's more of a genetic predisposition, but environment and behavior still plays a very large role. It's more akin to something like lactose intolerance in a lot of ways.

It's also complicated because in a lot of cases, you're dealing with depression as a motivating factor, so excessive alcoholism isn't really caused by need for alcohol as much as it is an attempt to self-medicate for other problems.
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