Quote:
Originally Posted by thaskalos
I used to call alcoholism a disease too. And then my wife got stricken with breast cancer, and in the course of her chemotherapy treatments I came to know other courageous women, of all ages, who suffered unspeakable torture in the hands of this heinous "Emperor of all Maladies". That's when I found out what a real "disease" was really like. There are "diseases", and then there are "character weaknesses". When the medical doctors confuse the two, they demean the struggles of the real "victims" out there...IMO.
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When one chooses to consider an affliction which manifests itself in a biologically verifiable manner with an affliction which can be attributed to nothing more than "character weakness" then conflating the two is wrong. However attributing the scourge of alcoholism to simply being the result of certain souls lacking sufficient will power to self cure is nothing more than a handy explanation for their plight and utterly denies the existence of that component in ourselves which largely defines us. Specifically our instinctual nature.
