Alcoholism - Comments

despite what people are saying in the comments below, i believe this article to help me a lot. I've been trying to find something on alcoholism and alcoholism treatment that i don't have to gouge my eyes out to understand. This was very easy to understand, and it makes complete sense to me. Alcoholism is sometimes referred to as a Disease, when it isn't.

Thanks (:

Thank you everyone for bitching about the whole thing. To begin, this article was an argumentative report I was to write for a english class. I know I made mistakes and there are a lot of things that I need improvemnts on, such as being biased. But you all need to learn to be a little more polite and not so sensitive about this.

Relax a little and stop being so irritating. If you only have something bitchy to say, then don't fucking say it at all.

Thanks.

First of all, the layout and general writing style is perfectly fitting and there are only a few minor mistakes (typos, punctiation...) I personally think you explain too often what you are going to do next. This isn't necessary and annoying after a while. I don't need to hear in every little detail what you did or are about to do. Especially not if it is two paragraphs which essentially say the same thing.

Secondly, I agree with Whiskey Hands completely safe for the genes part in her second argument. It's not genes which cause the addiction. It is chemic reactions in the brain and more or less trained behaviour. Genes have nothing to do with it.

I also want to elaborate on that, because I don't believe alcoholics make the choice to become an alcoholic. They made the choice to drink just for fun, as most of us do. I do it, but I'm not an alcoholic. But what is dangerous about drinking is when you do it to feel better. And this is entirely the learning process which later leads to the addiction. Because if you learn that when you are drunk you are happy, have more fun, etc. your brain makes a conncetion between alcohol and feeling good. And then when you're down or depressed, you drink and you feel better. And if you drink alcohol regularly, your body builds a certain resistance to it. So you need more to satisfy your need to feel good. This is actually the same process with smoking.

On the smoking part where you blamed the AMA as it has not classified it as a disease: So what? Do you need everything spelled out by some institution. Being gay was a disease once, too. Officially. But it was revoked because people realized it wasn't a disease. So don't just listen to what your are told or read, also use your own brain and think about it.

Furthermore to accuse the AMA to meddle with research is coming on too strong, unless there have been reports which I am unaware of (since I don't live in the US) which state otherwise. But making such an accusation only makes you seem biased.

Another aspect you mention is that anomalies aren't visible or measureable. That is not always true with alcoholism. As you need CT scans or other methods to find cancer-cells, you can make blood tests. There are people out there, alcoholics, so called level or delta alcoholics, whose resistance to alcohol is so high that they can have 4 per mill. Normal people would be dead, but they can still walk straight. Also another anomalie usually visible with "usual" alcoholics is that they are clearly drunk.


Lastly you mention in your Analysis and Discussion: part new arguments which is a bad thing to do in an essay/article. It's supposed to be a summary or your own opinion on what you wrote, but you're opening a whole new discussion there.

Whiskey Hands, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but you're wearing rose colored glasses. Although we cannot help the fact that we get addicted to certain substances, that doesn't mean that we should baby those who do...help them, yes, but not blame the whole thing on genetics. This lady you know...she took the first drink, right? She made her decision; the alcohol didn't run, laughing, into her mouth.

There are a few things I would like to say about what you've written in this piece:

1. Alcoholism is an addiction, it may be termed a disease as well - but it's mostly an addiction. This means that while someone has a choice to drink, chemicals react and an addiction happens. Just because someone chooses to drink doesn't necessarily mean that alcoholism is their own choosing. It means that they've had a taste of something without knowing about a possible addiction, therefore, it's not their choosing to be addicted.

2. You said in your introduction paragraphs that you were going to be discussing this with a member of your family(?) who had alcoholism. I didn't see a trace of that at all in this article. And that's a shame, because I honestly believe it would have contradicted a lot of what you said.

My dads best friends wife is an alcoholic. My dad had to stay up all night and help her detox because she was so addicted to alcohol. It wasn't her choice to be addicted, there was something in her genes. She went to a doctor and he gave her medication to help her come through the detox. While you say that doctor's can't do anything...I think you've limited your research, and that's not fair. This lady who I've known for at least ten years (the majority of which she has been an alcoholic) has been sober for 4-5 months. So, while you and your research say that doctor's can't help...they can.

You limited your research way too much. You only focused on the things that supported your argument. You didn't present other factors that might contradict what you were saying - if you don't do that, then you can't show your research is all correct.

I honestly think you should have talked to someone who has been an addict, because it's hardly fair that you're ready to tell them it was all their fault. There's a lot more involved than choice, and I'm rather disappointed that this article was one biased account the whole way through. :/