I've always thought that complete abstinence is begging the question in a matter of speaking. It seems to me that it's like saying you've cured your fear of flying by not going flying any more.
It's also like saying you've cured your cancer when you no longer have any cancer in your body. Think about it.
That is called "white-knuckle" sobriety - the type where you wake up, having nightmares that you drank again.
I used to work with an alcoholic in AA. He had been sober for 10 years. When someone goes to an AA meeting and wants to speak, they start by saying two things: their name followed by "I am an alcoholic." AA doesn't claim to cure anyone of alcoholism. As my friend often reminded me, he was still an alcoholic even though he hadn't had a drink in 10 years. So people in AA do not beg the question that if they abstain from alcohol, then they are cured of alcoholism.
But AA doesn't work for every body. Another guy I know went to AA to get off the alcohol. When he got sober, he went on to hard drugs. After some trouble with the law, he got off the drugs and went back to alcohol. The last I heard of him is that he is still off the drugs and is a happy, sloppy, drinking alcoholic.
Being afraid of flying
and being addicted to a substance such as alcohol
are not comparable items.
Flying is a bad example. It's more like, If you are allergic to peanut butter, and you get sick from eating it, you are much better off leaving it alone. The problem would arise when peanut butter also had the effect (like alcohol does with an alcoholic)of making you crave it physically and obsess over it mentally, any time you took even the smallest taste. Would you also posit that not eating a substance that makes you ill is "begging the question"?