Online Books On AA/NA

[psy]

From http://www.morerevealed.com/library/index.jsp

Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure?
by Charles Bufe

From Library Journal
Bufe ( The Heretic's Handbook of Quotations , See Sharp Pr., 1988) scrutinizes Alcoholics Anonymous, delving into the organization's origins and development. Tracing its roots to the Oxford Group movement, which was a revival of the Church of England begun in 1833, he demonstrates how major tenets of AA are derived from Oxford Group principles. He includes colorful details concerning organization founders. In critiquing the 12 steps, which are the heart of the AA recovery program, he leans heavily on the work of psychologist Albert Ellis. Bufe considers the AA religio-spiritual emphasis anathema. He also objects to AA's espousal of individual culpability for alcoholism, which does not acknowledge socioeconomic influences. His conclusion is that AA is a quasi-cult, devoid of harmful excesses but demanding strict adherence from its membership. Despite his purported objectivity, his secular bias is very much in evidence. The appendix includes descriptions of secular-based alcoholic recovery programs, and also a secular version of the 12 steps. — Carol R. Glatt, VA Medical Ctr. Lib., Philadelphia © 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Independent Publisher
Charles Bufe tried AA in 1983, hated it, and kept drinking until 1985, when he achieved sobriety on his own. Clearly, Bufe has something of an ax to grind, but for the most part he grinds it fairly. (At worst, the author's skepticism is no more extreme than the zeal of some AA supporters.) Bufe poses two major questions - Is AA religious? Is it a cult? - and raises some interesting points along the way. He traces the program's religious overtones to the Oxford Group Movement of the 1930s. This movement, he argues, heavily influenced AA founder Bill Wilson. Bufe supports his thesis with detailed, if not always fascinating, quotes and parallels. He concludes that AA is religious, a label sure to rile members who consider their program a secular one. His other conclusion - that AA isn't a cult - is only common sense: AA has no leader, makes no financial demands, and does not use highpressure tactics. Bufe raises a timely point regarding the seemingly endless spin-off groups that have adopted AA's 12 steps as their own. How do victims, such as members of Incest Survivors Anonymous, profit from steps designed for the addicted? Appendices include secular alternatives to AA and the 12 Steps.

More Revealed: A Critical Analysis of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps
aka The Real AA: Behind the Myth of Twelve Step Recovery (See Sharp edition title)
by Ken Ragge

Alice Miller says,
"[More Revealed] will be a shock to many people because it reveals facts they would rather not know. But the shock, I have no doubt, will be a healthy one."
-- Alice Miller is famous as author of The Drama of the Gifted Child, For Your Own Good: The Hidden Roots of Cruelty in Childrearing and the Roots of Violence, and Breaking Down the Wall of Silence among other books.

Stanton Peele says,
"It's great. [T]he best overall analysis I've seen of the roots, nature, consequences, and failures of AA. ...summary of relevant research is excellent and to the point. ... remarkably well written."
-- social psychologist Stanton Peele is author of The Meaning of Addiction and The Diseasing of America.

G. Alan Marlatt says,
"interesting and informing reading ... I admire your courage to bring up the issues so clearly."
-- G. Alan Marlatt, Ph.D., Professor and Director Addictive Behaviors Research Center, University of Washington

Jack Trimpey says,
"a landmark in America's return to sanity in addiction care. ... the kind of book many would like to censor ...a reading responsibility for people in the helping professions."
-- Jack Trimpey, Executive Director of Rational Recovery Self-Help Network (now in 500 cities) in The Journal of Rational Recovery

And the public says,

"I have always sensed there was something wrong with twelve step programs. Since everyone else seemed to think they were great, I assumed I didn't understand them completely or perhaps I was in 'denial.' ... More Revealed has helped me understand the cultism and dependence inherent in these programs. If this information had been available to my mother 25 years ago, she might still be alive."
-- Martha White

"More Revealed is making its way gradually around our office and everyone thinks the book is about them, and they have this funny little way of getting ever so slightly possessive about it, as though they alone truly understood the secrets held within. So Ken, hordes of people think you've written a book just for them, and so you have."
-- Jeanine B., Florida reader

>"I hated this book. I used to think I was an alcoholic and there was nothing I could do about it except drink. Now I have to take responsibility."
-- John B.

"Brilliant"
-- Carol King, M.P.H., Yale University, author of Poverty and Medical Care

"After reading More Revealed, I now understand why AA members are among the most disoriented, desperate and lost callers I have handled."
-- Ron W., Suicide Hotline Counselor

"Those who read this book could die."
-- Thomas F., twelve stepper who found this book too frightening to read

"This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to be a therapist."
-- Erma Epple, MA

"It opened my eyes..."
-- Bonnie Guerra

"After reading this book I am more convinced that I must trust my own intuition more than anything else and march to the beat of my own drummer."
-- Carlos Grado, social worker

Twelve Step Horror Stories: True Tales of Misery, Betrayal and Abuse in NA, AA
and 12-Step Treatment
edited Rebecca Fransway, Ed.

“Those in this book are incredibly brave. Instead of sinking into a hole (‘jails, institutions, or death’) after rejecting AA, as AA told them they would, they've stood on their own two feet and have dared challenge a sacrosanct American icon.”  — Stanton Peele, Author of Love and Addiction, Diseasing of America, Resisting 12-Step Coercion

“Through this book, Rebecca Fransway is doing a great service to those who are considering joining or are being forced into the step groups; this collection of stories will reveal to them that ‘the loving hand of AA’ is often quite different from its wall-poster image. “The gift that Rebecca and the scores of personal accounts in this book offer is the knowledge that, no, you are not crazy; no, you are not alone; and yes, there is life after leaving the step groups.” — Ken Ragge, Author of The Real AA

“12-Step Horror Stories graphically reveals America's most under-reported scandal — that 12-step groups and 12-step treatment are usually ineffective and all too often are actively harmful.” —Charles Bufe, Author of Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure?

Resisting 12-Twelve Step Coercion: How to Fight Forced Participitation in AA, NA, or 12-Step Treatment
by Stanton Peele and Charles Bufe with Archie Brodsky

from the cover:  Every year 1,000,000 Americans are coerced into Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and 12-step treatment.  Many of these people are neither alcoholics or drug addicts. Even for those who do abuse alcohol or drugs, coerced treatment does little good, and often amounts to little more than religious indoctrination.  Coerced 12-step participation has, however, been successfully challenged several times in recent years in appeal-level courts on constitutional grounds (as a violation of the First Amendment's “Establishment Clause”). But the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the issue, and even in parts of the country where courts have ruled against it, 12-step coercion continues on a massive scale.  If you, a loved one, or a client are being forced to participate in a 12-step group or 12-step treatment, this book will give you the information you need to challenge that forced participation — to resist 12-step coercion.

Saints Run Mad
by Marjorie Harrison

First published in 1934, "Saints Run Mad" is a cricism of the Oxford Group written by an Episcopal Church lady that reads very well as a criticism of the 12-Step groups of today. While "Frank" (Frank Buchman) is gone and not a word is said any more of the Absolutes, the madness carries on today. Written from a decidedly Christian perspective, it exposes the arrogance, hypocracy, and harm done, not only of 70 years ago but in AA and the other Step groups today. You hardly need be Christian to appreciate her honesty, candor and wit. But if you are, even better. — Ken Ragge, Author of More Revealed aka The Real AA

Soul Surgery
by H. A. Walter

In the 1920s and 30s, a new convert to the Oxford Group could buy this do-it-yourself manual for a few pennies and immediately set to work winning new converts. Supposedly a Christian document, the essence of the book has nothing to do with Christianity but with Buchmanism and the details of their "scientific" program of "soul surgery" or cult indoctrination techniques. The basic fundamental "scientific" principles are greatly refined and still used in modern-day Step groups. — Ken Ragge, Author of More Revealed aka The Real AA

What is the Oxford Group?
by The Layman With the Notebook

Another book written in the early thirties plainly shows where much of A.A. came from a few years before modern-day A.A.'s claim A.A. began. In the first few words, one will see A.A.'s "the spiritual principle of Anonymity" before there was an A.A. (the book was written anonymously) and a description of the Oxford Group not much different from the way modern-day A.A. describes itself.

[psy]

Jeffery Schaler - Addiction is a Choice

not online in full, but a good read nonetheless.  Order it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Addiction-Choice- ... 081269404X

[psy]

Interesting Snip:

The first was an experiment done in San Diego, California. Chronic offenders, averaging twelve prior drunk arrests each, were given a thirty-day suspended sentence and a one-year probation. A requirement of probation was that they remain abstinent for one year.

A court judge randomly assigned 301 people to one of three categories: no treatment, a psychiatrically oriented community alcoholism clinic and Alcoholics Anonymous. Complete data for a minimum of one year was available on 241 cases. In the no-treatment group, 56 percent were rearrested. The AA group fared the worst. In what was almost a tie with the clinic group, 69 percent of the group sent to AA was rearrested. An interesting question, one that was not answered in the research paper, is whether the clinic, as is customary, also sent their clients to AA.

In the first month, all groups did equally as well (or poorly, depending on how one chooses to look at it). After the first month, presumably when AA or clinic attendance should begin showing its effect, is precisely when both groups lost ground against no treatment. Also, while only eleven of the 241 persons credited AA with their longest period of abstinence, nine of these eleven, or a full 80 percent, were rearrested. Those who credited AA the most were rearrested the most.

Another Snip:

A most revealing study of the over-all success of AA was done by Harvard psychiatrist and prominent authority on the disease of alcoholism, George Vaillant. In one of the longest studies of its size and type, Vaillant followed 100 men for eight years. The men selected were the first 100 consecutive admissions for detoxification at an alcoholism clinic. They were followed up annually. Praised for his candidness, Vaillant wrote of his project in his book, “The Natural History of Alcoholism,”

“It seemed perfectly clear...by turning to recovering alcoholics [AA members] rather than to Ph.D.'s for lessons in breaking self-detrimental and more or less involuntary habits, and by inexorably moving patients...into the treatment system of AA, I was working for the most exciting alcohol program in the world.

But then came the rub. [We] tried to prove our efficacy. ...

After initial discharge, only 5 patients in the Clinic sample never relapsed to alcoholic drinking, and there is compelling evidence that the results of our treatment were no better than the natural history of the disease. ...Not only had we failed to alter the natural history of alcoholism, but our death rate of three percent a year was appalling.”63

Stanton Peele, an investigator independent of Vaillant's study, after examining some of Vaillant's unpublished data found,

“Of those who quit drinking on their own, none of the twenty-one men followed up since the end of the study were abusing alcohol. ...Relapse was more common for the AA group: 81 percent of those who quit on their own either had abstained for ten or more years or drank infrequently, compared with the 32 percent of those who relied on AA who fall in these categories.”64

Another Snip:

One study of many which indicate how AA works in hospitalized patients brings to mind “Oxfordizing” and the five C's. In a Texas hospital69 35 men of various lengths of hospitalization in an AA-based program underwent psychological testing. It was found that the longer a patient was in the program the higher he scored on responses indicating defeat, guilt and fear. Perhaps most important, as the patients became more indoctrinated in AA, their self-concept became progressively more negative than when they first sought help for their drinking problems. As the Oxford Group before them, Alcoholics Anonymous uses guilt to bring about conversion to membership. Alcoholics Anonymous has the added benefit of manipulation through fear. With these tools at its disposal, indoctrinationproceeds. This is all to get a person with a drinking problem to join what has been called, and AA's own statistics70 back up, “a society of slippers.”

The “medical” justification for AA indoctrination used by treatment enterprises and AA itself is the disease theory. Careful examination of disease theory, which many of us have accepted for humanitarian reasons, will show its effects have been far from humanitarian.

[Anonymous]

has it ever been scientifically proved that AA is effective treatment for addiction?

Also, I don't think addiction can be labeled a choice.

[psy]

has it ever been scientifically proved that AA is effective treatment for addiction?

No, but it has been proven ineffective.  The only reason it's popular is because those who go believe it works and consider it a tenet of thier beleif (12th step) to "witness" to others and spread their religion.  As noted in the first part of the snip above, "Those who credited AA the most were rearrested the most."

Another snip:

In a sophisticated controlled study of A.A.'s effectiveness (Brandsma et. al.), court-mandated offenders who had been sent to Alcoholics Anonymous for several months were engaging in FIVE TIMES as much binge drinking as another group of alcoholics who got no treatment at all, and the A.A. group was doing NINE TIMES as much binge drinking as another group of alcoholics who got rational behavior therapy.

Outpatient Treatment of Alcoholism, by Jeffrey Brandsma, Maxie Maultsby, and Richard J. Welsh. University Park Press, Baltimore, MD., page 105.

[psy]

Also, I don't think addiction can be labeled a choice.

It's a habit.  People quit bad habits.  Quitting is a choice.

Here is an interview with Jeffery Schaler, PhD on his book, "Addiction is a Choice".  You might change your mind after reading either that article, or the book:
http://archive.salon.com/health/books/2 ... index.html

[psy]

I don't think addiction can be labeled a choice.

Another Snip:

loss of control

One of the most carefully researched elements of the disease theory is the concept of loss of control. While it may be a common subjective experience, it is not physically based, as a wealth of research has shown.

The test most often cited due to its methodological soundness, was reported in 1973.84 The experiment involved 32 alcoholics and 32 social drinkers as controls. Both groups were treated identically. The 32 alcoholics were divided into two groups. Under the guise of a taste test, both groups were told they would be rating a new product that had not yet reached the market. One group was told they were taste-testing Brand X vodka; the other, Brand X tonic water. In the group told they were taste-testing alcohol, the drinks were mixed in front of them. The catch, however, was that only half actually received alcohol. The other half were poured drinks from vodka bottles which had been filled with decarbonated tonic water. Half the group that thought they were testing plain tonic water was actually given vodka. For those given vodka in both groups, the concentration was one part vodka to five parts water. It was an amount that would evade detection after use of a mouthwash.

All participants were given two ounces of each of the three different brands as an “introductory sample.” This was the priming dose that, according to the disease theory, would cause loss of control. Twenty minutes later, the actual “taste testing” began. Each participant was given three twenty-four ounce decanters, each decanter labeled for a different brand. They were told to drink as much as they needed to in order to rate it.

No one lost control. No one drank all the liquid. The most important result of the experiment was that the amount drunk was determined, not by whether there was alcohol in the drink, but whether the subjects thought there was alcohol in the drink. The ones who thought they were drinking plain tonic, whether they were really drinking alcohol or not, drank about ten ounces. Those who thought they were drinking alcohol drank more than twice as much, whether or not they were in fact drinking alcohol. It made no difference whether they were really drinking alcohol or not. What made the difference was what they believed and what they expected based on that belief.

The loss of control hypothesis has been tested many times. In another type of experiment, alcoholics who had to have suffered the DT's* in order to participate were allowed to drink all they wanted until a certain cut-off date.85 Before the cut-off date, they tapered off on their own in order to avoid severe withdrawal. They gave them boring and tedious tasks to perform in order to earn “credits” for drinks. Even when the subjects were going through withdrawal from prior earned drinking bouts, drink credits were saved up for later use.

Loss of control has never been proven and, time and again, has been shown to not exist.

...

The belief that alcoholism is progressive and incurable also has a firm hold on our consciousness even though it has been successfully challenged time and again. One of the first studies to report a return to social drinking by alcoholics was published in 1961.87 The researcher used extremely stringent requirements in order to avoid error and criticism. The 93 alcoholics in the study had to meet the World Health Organization's criteria for alcoholism. To qualify as having become a moderate drinker, the subject must have never been drunk in the years after hospital release. The shortest time period allowed was seven years. He found that seven of the 93 who qualified as alcoholics had returned to moderate drinking.

The announcement created a storm. Everyone knew that alcoholics couldn't return to social drinking. There was something wrong with his study. Two of the criticisms were particularly amusing in the light of the careful restriction used in the categories. One was that the test subjects were never really alcoholics, they drank too much, meaning they drank too much to have ever been alcoholics.88 The other was that the moderation in drinking didn't count because it was too moderate."89

Other studies have been done since. The largest was by the prestigious Rand Corporation.90 In a follow-up of 548 alcoholics at eight differnt AA-based treatment centers, they found that 18 percent had moderated their drinking and become non-problem drinkers after treatment. Only 7 percent managed to abstain for the four year period. Those who had some or complete success remaining abstinent, as a group, had twice as many drinking-related problems as those who had moderated their consumption. Overall, they did almost as poorly as those who were still problem drinkers at the four-year point. The Rand Reports also pointed out that those who came to believe the “traditional alcoholism ideology” and had successfully adopted the AA self-mage of “alcoholic” were the ones most likely to continue heavy, problematic drinking.

Also in contradiction to the idea of the inevitable progression and incurability of alcoholism are studies of the drinking habits of young people. A twenty-year follow-up of college students found it rare for a student who drank until blackout to be doing so twenty years later.91 Another study followed high school sophomores for 13 years.92 The data showed that levels of alcohol consumption in the teen years were only mildly predictive of later consumption. Teenage abstinence was also found to be mildly predictive of later heavy drinking. In other words, in this study and others, abstinence has been found to “progress” to alcoholism almost as well as being a teenage drunkard.

The concepts of inevitable progression and incurability have great value, great dollar value to the multi-billion dollar treatment industry and, as Dr. Silkworth taught Bill Wilson, great indoctrination value.

[Anonymous]

Is it accepted in the medical community that AA is ineffective as treatment? Are there conflicting studies, with some showing it helps and some showing it doesn't help? How interesting that AA is ineffective yet so mainstream.

I don't believe addiction is a choice. I am not a PHD, but I am slowly (very) working towards my degree and there have been some pretty seemingly reliable studies done on the brains of addicts and how they differ from non users, or casual drug users, not that I am not so naive as to believe that studies prove anything conclusively, as studies can be manipulated to "prove" things they do not.

 I base my belief on my experience with an eating disorder. Even though food lacks the powerful, brain-altering chemical inputs of drugs, i don't feel it was a "choice."
 I am against labeling ordinary drug use or abuse as addiction, but I do not feel genuine addiction is a choice in the way deciding to take coke or Pepsi from a vending machine is a choice. People really are overwhelmed, confused, mentally obliterated, and crazed when they get addicted. I am against the over-medicalization of our society, especially as it applies to vulnerable people, but understanding drug addicts as people as, weak willed, lazy, stupid, or slobby, which is the ramification of thinking that addiction is a choice is not something that will be helpful, either

[psy]

Another Snip:

Another characteristic of the disease of alcoholism, one which is increasingly being stressed by the treatment industry in their struggle to fill beds, is the symptom of denial. Obviously, those who engage in self-destructive behavior of any type usually have a strong tendency to discount the damage they inflict upon themselves. Denial as used in the disease of alcoholism, however, has a much broader and sinister meaning.

Refusing to turn oneself over to the treatment authorities is denial. One cannot abstain on one's own, they say, so anyone who believes they can is suffering the symptom of denial. Anyone caught in the webs of the treatment/AA system who believes they can moderate their drinking is guilty of denial. Failure to take the full first step of Alcoholics Anonymous, addmitting that one is “powerless” and can't manage one's own life, is denial. Either you begin accepting their doctrine or you are suffering a symptom of alcoholism. Stopping drinking is insufficient. One still must accept having the disease and submit to the treatment authorities.

Prior to alcoholism as defined by AA, the only other “social ill” for which denial was considered a symptom was in the Middle Ages. In the “diagnosis” of witches, a sure sign of a woman being a witch was that she denied it. It was based on common sense. A real witch would deny it.

It must have been as difficult for someone accused of witchcraft to argue their way out of it as someone today who, once accused, can't help but “prove” their alcoholism by denying it.

It is important to point out that AA members really believe that alcoholism is a disease with the specific characteristics mentioned here. Much of the reason for this is entirely semantic.

By defining alcoholism as a disease and attaching each of the elements of the disease theory to that definition, it proves itself. Just like the basic assumptions about witchcraft proved to almost everyone's satisfaction the existence of witchcraft in the Middle Ages.93

Imagine, for instance, the flu redefined as an always fatal disease. If it isn't fatal, it isn't the flu. Now imagine a doctor with a patient who is running a fever, coughing and headachy. If the patient should die, he can be held up as an example of the inevitable fatality of the flu. But what if the patient lives, as is to be expected? He didn't have the flu. How could he have? The flu, by definition, is always fatal. Using such a definition makes it impossible to prove that the flu isn't always fatal. The presence of the same virus and symptoms in those who live and those who die is irrelevant. If it isn't fatal, it isn't the flu.

[psy]

Is it accepted in the medical community that AA is ineffective as treatment? Are there conflicting studies, with some showing it helps and some showing it doesn't help?

AFAIK, the most positive (for AA) scientific study out there was done by an AA board member at Harvard.  It still found a success rate no better than the spontaneous rate of remission (tendency of those without treatment to recover on their own).

I don't believe addiction is a choice. I am not a PHD, but I am slowly (very) working towards my degree and there have been some pretty seemingly reliable studies done on the brains of addicts and how they differ from non users, or casual drug users, not that I am not so naive as to believe that studies prove anything conclusively, as studies can be manipulated to "prove" things they do not.

Stanton Peele, PhD has written on the brain scan studies:
http://www.peele.net/debate/pleasure.html

Keep in mind also, that way back in the day it was believed that criminals had different brains than normal people.  This led to countless instances of both looking for differences and barbaric experimenting on people's noodles.

I base my belief on my experience with an eating disorder. Even though food lacks the powerful, brain-altering chemical inputs of drugs, i don't feel it was a "choice."

Was it a bad habit?  Did you break the bad habit?  How did that happen?

I am against labeling ordinary drug use or abuse as addiction, but I do not feel genuine addiction is a choice in the way deciding to take coke or Pepsi from a vending machine is a choice. People really are overwhelmed, confused, mentally obliterated, and crazed when they get addicted.

Aha.  You say "overwhelmed".  I would say that yes there is pressure, but to the point where a person cannot control himself at all?  Neither the facts nor common sense back that up.

Read this snip on that:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=26453#p322016

[Anonymous]

What is with this website eating my responses?

 Well, to repeat myself, I think that study is an example of tendency I was referring when I said that studies are misused as proof for hypotheses that they don't actually verify. I think an alcoholic or an addict can use a drug without automatically falling into a binge. At the same time, I don't think their need and use of drugs is a "choice."

At the very least, the behavior is comparably with the behavior of people dealing with PTSD. Basically, there is something wrong with their brain—that’s not a choice, though perhaps you could say how they react to their brains is, to a certain extent, a “choice,” though I don’t think that’s a fair way to categorize it. Hopefully, though, either way, people will stop being forced to suffer bogus, harmful cures.

[psy]

I think an alcoholic or an addict can use a drug without automatically falling into a binge.

I agree.  But that's not what AA teaches.  AA teaches that one drink leads to another and so on and so forth, and that there is a "black spot" where an addict/alcoholic cannot control what he/she is doing.

At the same time, I don't think their need and use of drugs is a "choice."

Well, how do alcoholics/addicts manage to quit, then, because it does tend to happen (more likely without AA/NA than with)?

[Anonymous]

I think an alcoholic or an addict can use a drug without automatically falling into a binge.

I agree.  But that's not what AA teaches.  AA teaches that one drink leads to another and so on and so forth, and that there is a "black spot" where an addict/alcoholic cannot control what he/she is doing.

At the same time, I don't think their need and use of drugs is a "choice."

Well, how do alcoholics/addicts manage to quit, then, because it does tend to happen (more likely without AA/NA than with)?

Well, I think their recovery is comparable to the recovery of someone who has been "brainwashed."  I think true alcoholics have an abnormal brain, but through help,(not help in the sense of AA, but help in the sense of people who care about them "being there for them," getting them a reliable place to stay if they homeless, sorting out medical issues that can drive them to self-medicate, etc) fortitude, and luck resist the emotions the abnormal brain produces, navigate it's trance like state like a rider of a dream, and hopefully, by leading a "normal" life eventually end up with a "normal," healed brain that doesn't torment them with emotions, altered states, drives, etc.

[psy]

Well, how do alcoholics/addicts manage to quit, then, because it does tend to happen (more likely without AA/NA than with)?

Well, I think their recovery is comparable to the recovery of someone who has been "brainwashed."  I think true alcoholics have an abnormal brain, but through help,(not help in the sense of AA, but help in the sense of people who care about them "being there for them," getting them a reliable place to stay if they homeless, sorting out medical issues that can drive them to self-medicate, etc) fortitude, and luck resist the emotions the abnormal brain produces, navigate it's trance like state like a rider of a dream, and hopefully, by leading a "normal" life eventually end up with a "normal," healed brain that doesn't torment them with emotions, altered states, drives, etc.

I'm not arguing that in some instances there may be genetic predispositions to alcohol abuse, but a predisposition does not mean a person cannot control their actions.  That's an excuse, IMO.  If that were true, we'd have to aquit people for any actions they commit under the influence since both the decision to drink and their actions under the influence were out of their control (actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea)...  but that's not the way the law works.  The very fact that "alcoholics" recover proves that they can control their own behavior and are thus capable of choosing not to drink.  You could say "well they weren't alcoholics then", and then we're back to witch dunkings (read that snip if you haven't already).

The whole "sick brain" "healed brain" thing smacks of pseudoscience, btw.  Until I see a solid source on that i'll be very, very skeptical.  It seems like something that sounds popular since it lets people have an excuse (it's not my fault, it's just the "disease").

[Anonymous]

I quit drinking twelve years ago with no relapses since I stopped.  In the beginning I tried going to AA but the cult vibe and the Judeo-Christian based "spirituality" was off-putting.   I didn't like being labelled an alcoholic and told that's what I would be forever.  We put too many labels on people already, why be burdened with another.  Former smokers aren't called smokers after they quit - I'm only an alcoholic when there is alcohol in my system.  

Psy's comments about choice are interesting and how the law views addiction.  The courts can force an addict into treatment because they're "sick" while slapping a lengthy jail sentence on them as punishment for being sick?  I agree that it is a choice to get help and stop but addiction is stronger than the individual's will power.   An addict can rationalize and justify using with a million lies.