Why do alcohols call their addiction a disease?

[soaps]

The way I see it, it's a way of life for them, They made the choice.

[Craftypig]

Are there people around that are addicted to things like charity work or good deeds? Why are people with addictive personalities always addicted to things that harm them?

[ummmm]

I know Anne...It was the years of drinking. He drank heavily through many of them. He was a pub man. He didn't 'need' a drink though. He never drank at home either. He still got cirrhosis...and then cancer. Just goes to show that some people bodies can hack more than others. His brothers all drank the same as him, are older than him, and none of them have died of an alcohol induced illness.

[ChocolatChip]

Alcoholism can be hereditary, particularly in men.
Scientists discovered a mutated gene in boys due if their father had been alcoholics. In which they took a preference to alcohol, and were predispositioned to become alcoholics.
I don't have access to my journals right now, but I can assure you I have read the reports myself :)

Although being predispositioned to alcoholism doesn't mean that you will become one. A kind of 'screw you' theory can develop, where the child does the opposite and refuses to drink alcohol.

Problematic life experiences and bad coping mechanisms, are often assistors in becoming an alcoholic.

It's a very difficult and controversial thing, my father is an alcoholic. And I've done everything from chucking his alcohol to screaming and begging him to stop.
He never will though, and I accept that.

Soaps, I take it you have personal experience of an alcoholic due to your aggressive/strong opinions?

[ummmm]

Crafty - they might be. Because it doesn't harm them or harm others it's not considered a problem.

[ChocolatChip]

p.s. Sorry if there is lots of spelling mistakes, I am ill! :(

[anneasquith]

choco............ he may stop some day, i hope he does.

[ummmm]

Chocolate - How old is he?

[anneasquith]

dreadful family history red. so sorry .

[ummmm]

Helen - My Dad was 59 :-(

[ChocolatChip]

My father is 58 ummmm.
It's okay, I have done most of the things I wanted to do with him.
He was walked me down the aisle, and hopefully he will be round long enough for grandchildren.
I love him, I truly do. Sometime when he's aggressive or drunk, I get annoyed, and dislike him for it.
But I'd never stop seeing him, or having him in my life.

[anneasquith]

keep well redhelen, anne

[ummmm]

Yeah I did Helen. He was a brilliant Dad and was the true constant in my life. I would never be the person I am today without him. He taught me how to love unconditionally. When he did get drunk...he just got soppy. He was a legend in this town.....miss him so much. Anniversary on the 28th Feb :-((

[ChocolatChip]

I'm sorry to hear that ummm,
you sound like the way I am with my father a lot of the time.

[mike11111]

I was interested to read an earlier comment about giving small amounts of alcohol to very young children. Within my lifetime I can remember that it was not unusual to dip a baby's dummy in whisky if he/she was being fractious. In Victorian times it was not uncommon for nursemaids to dip dummies in laudanum (a distillate of opium and freely available at the time) to keep the babies quiet whilst they dallied with their beaux. Although not an alcoholic, I am rather fond of a drink and sometimes wonder if this might not be traced back to my love of Nurse Dinneford's gripewater, given to babies and young children for colic in the 50s and which was alcohol-based. I used to pretend I had a tummyache so my mother would give me some. I was only 4!

[ummmm]

Helen...better late than never I suppose.

I know I'm very lucky :-)

[Scarlett]

Having a personality which is obsessive/compulsive results in doing things to excess which you know are not good for you, yet you are helpless to control yourself. This is not just boozing it up at weekends or eating too much on a Sunday. It's a condition, whereby 'stop' signals are completely blurred; a self-destructive urge which you simply cannot fight. Anorexia and bulimia are the same. Nobody chooses to become obsessive about alcohol/food/smoking/drugs. It is something which I believe, in the future, scientists will discover is caused by a brain blip; a genetic thing which at the moment, is ridiculously being "dealt with" by the government as though it is caused by over-indulgence. If being thin was a matter of eating less, everyone would be thin. Same with alcoholism; if it was easy to stop, everyone would just stop. The addiction is only part of the issue; the urgency and obsession/self-destruction which the person feels, and is helpless to fight against, is far less understood, but is the main cause of the disease.