Alcoholism As a Disease

One of the difficulties in recognizing alcoholism as a disease is it just plain doesn’t seem like one. It doesn’t look, sound, smell and it certainly doesn’t act like a disease. To make matters worse, generally it denies it exists and resists treatment.

Alcoholism has been recognized by professional medical organizations for many years as a major, constant, progressive and at times deadly disease. The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence offers a detailed and complete definition of alcoholism, but perhaps the simplest way to describe it is “a mental obsession that causes a physical compulsion to drink.”

You might be asking, “What is a mental obsession?” If you are like me there has been some point in your life where you have had a song playing continuously in your head. It might be a song that you heard playing on the radio or a commercial you heard on television, but it keeps on playing … and playing and playing.

Mental Obsession Do you remember what it was like? No matter what you did, that stupid melody kept repeating in your head. You may have tried to listen to another tune, whistle or sing another song, or turn on the radio but the one in your head just kept on playing. We have all been there. There was something going on in your mind that you didn’t consciously put there and no matter how hard you tried you couldn’t get it out!

This is an example of what a basic mental obsession is — a thought process over which you have no control. Now you might understand more about the nature of the disease of alcoholism. When the drinking “song” starts playing in the mind of an alcoholic, he becomes powerless to resist the noise. He didn’t consciously put the song there and the obvious way to get it to stop playing is to take a drink.

Unfortunately, for the alcoholic, the mental fixation with alcohol is much more subtle than simply a song playing in his mind. What is truly sad is the fact that he may not even know it’s there. The only thing the alcoholic recognizes is that there is a sudden urge to take a drink — a physical compulsion to drink.

Progressive Disease Aggravating the predicament is the progressive nature of the disease. In the early stages of the mental obsession taking one or two drinks may be all the person needs to get the “song” to stop. But soon it will take six or seven drinks and then later possibly ten or twelve. It comes to a point when the only time the song stops is when he passes out.

The progression of the disease is so subtle and usually takes place over such an extended period of time, that even the alcoholic himself failed to notice the point at which he lost control — and alcohol took over — his life.

It can’t be any wonder that denial is a common symptom of the illness. For those that do recognize there is a problem help can be as close as the white pages of the telephone directory. Unfortunately there are those who need help however they do all they can to resist it, for these people intervention may be the only alternative.

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