Behavior or Disease?

The influence of Alcoholics Anonymous has been tremendous in promoting the belief that habitual heavy drinking is a “disease” of alcoholism.  In spite of the fact that there is no clear etiology for the disease, most people now assume alcoholism is indeed a disease.

Dr. Herbert Fingarette, a professor at the University of California and an internationally distinguished scholar, has written a book titled Heavy Drinking:The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease.  He says: “The public has been kept unaware of a mass of scientific evidence accumulated over the past couple of decades, evidence familiar to researchers in the field, which radically challenges each major belief generally associated with the phrase ‘alcoholism is a disease.’...The disease concept of alcoholism not only has no basis in current science; it has never had a scientific justification.” 

     12 Steps to Destruction: Codependency Recovery Heresies  pp. 74-75