Alcoholism and the Concept of Disease.

This article focuses on alcoholism and the concept of disease. Removing the status of disease from drinking behavior does not make medical practice redundant for other aspects of alcoholism. In fact the convene is true, because by defining out what isn't medical, it is possible to define in what is. There are actually many aspects of alcoholism that conform to the criteria of disease, which are distressing and dangerous, and which are amenable to medical treatment. Examples are cirrhosis, peptic ulceration, neuropathy, and myocarditis. The withdrawal syndrome itself with its symptoms of anxiety, tremulousness, nausea and sweating, as well as delirium tremens, organic cerebral reactions, psychotic reactions and convulsions, all require appropriate and urgent medical therapy. Specifying what is and what isn't a disease in the medical sense determines the patient's expectations of his treatment. Likewise the doctor is not put in the position where he is exasperated by the failure of his treatment which in any case was not appropriate and could not be expected to produce a cure.