My Divorce Journal - Is It Really a Disease?

Last week I was beginning to answer questions with the help of Al-Anon’s 12 Step recovery program. This week I am answering whether I have accepted that alcoholism is a disease.

Then – 3/4/2004

“Al-Anon Journal question - Do I accept that alcoholism is a disease? How does that change how I deal with a drinker?

I have a really hard time with this concept of ‘disease’. A disease is something that you ‘get’ not something you ‘do’ to yourself. ‘Dr. Brody’ said that maybe it would be easier for me to understand it as a disease that can be controlled; that an alcoholic has control over whether they will succumb to the first drink, but once they give up that control the disease part takes over. I can pretty much accept that explanation because it does contain the concept of choice in the definition. Most ‘diseases’ do not give a person a choice; you don’t choose to have cancer one day and not the next day. An alcoholic does choose to relapse therefore allowing the possibility of the disease to take over.”

Now – 5/29/2011

At the time I wrote that journal entry I was only just beginning to understand what alcoholism is. As I’ve said before, I didn’t have alcoholism in my family of origin and I felt totally clueless. But the most interesting thing happened when ‘Carl’ went to his first rehab facility – I talked to him about what I should say to people when they asked where he is. He told me to tell them the truth. The interesting thing is that every person who knew ‘Carl’ for the past few years and also had alcoholism in their family knew he was an alcoholic, without fail, and were surprised that I didn’t know. Yet every person who knew ‘Carl’ and didn’t have alcoholism in their family was as shocked as I was.

I kept hearing in meetings that alcoholism was a disease which made me want to scream “Stop giving them an excuse!” However today I have a much better understanding of alcoholism and I have much more compassion for the people dealing with this addiction. I don’t pretend to know why ‘Carl’ became an alcoholic but I also cannot risk denying that it’s hereditary. I have two teenage children who will eventually be the adult children of an alcoholic and I am concerned for them. Have they inherited the disease? Will their experience as children stop them from falling to peer pressure or make them more knowledgeable? Will this generation of children being raised by parents that attended recovery programs have a better chance of breaking the cycle?

Time will tell.

Next week – Change and control