Judge says alcoholism no disease

During a sentencing Thursday in Allen Superior Court involving a drunken driving fatal crash, Judge Fran Gull said alcoholism is not a disease – a comment that contradicts the beliefs of much of the medical field.

Gull later defended her statement, saying she was referring specifically to the case at hand.

Gull, who is one of three criminal judges for the court, also oversees drug court – a program that began in 1997 aims to rehabilitate non-violent offenders with drug and alcohol addictions through 12 to 18 months of intensive supervision and treatment. Participants must take other steps to improve their lives, and if they remain substance free, their criminal charges are dismissed.

Before Gull sentenced Todd Anthony Bebout, defense attorney Mitch Hicks asked Gull to consider Bebout’s disease, referring to his addictions to alcohol and drugs.

“He had opportunities to rehabilitate himself, but it’s a disease. It’s not only a matter of wanting to quit,” Hicks argued. “Well, you are the drug court director, you know.”

Minutes later, while reviewing what she would consider in sentencing, Gull said Bebout didn’t have a disease.

“It’s not a disease,” she said. “People say that time and again, but it’s not.”

Gull continued by explaining that the man had a choice, and his choices led to the death of a woman. She also emphasized the man’s failed attempts at rehabilitation through the criminal justice system over the years, which included counseling, probation and intensive treatment.

Alcoholism is recognized as a disease by both the American Medical Association and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which is responsible for 90 percent of the nation’s research on alcohol addiction, spokeswoman Ann Bradley said.

It’s a disease that involves compulsive use that cannot be controlled until the alcohol or addictive substance is removed, Bradley said.

The symptoms of the disease, according to the institute’s Web site, include craving alcohol, loss of control, physical dependence and tolerance. Those afflicted by the chronic disease can experience withdrawal symptoms, such as anxiety, sweating, shaking or nausea.

Bradley said alcoholism is considered a brain disease and that there are medications available to help alcoholics. The difference between the addiction being a disease and a bad choice is the loss of control over how much one drinks.

When questioned about the comment later in the day, Gull defended her statements made in court. She said her comment was referring specifically to that case only. She said the attorney who brought up Bebout’s addictions invited her to comment about the situation.

“He invited me to consider it as a mitigating circumstance for sentencing,” Gull said. “But there was no evidence to show that it was a disease.”

Gull said she would have considered it had Hicks presented a medical diagnosis to establish his client’s disease. Although she did not ask for such evidence during the hearing or even mention that it was lacking, Gull later noted in a sentencing order that the argument was not supported.

Addiction doesn’t necessarily mean disease, she said, and part of the problem is the lack of consistent information, saying that the topic is still debated among various professional fields.

There are times when Gull has received medical information supporting that an offender has an addiction that has been diagnosed as a disease, she said. In those situations, which do arise in drug court, she orders the offender to follow doctor’s orders and makes that a requirement of participation in the program.

“I very specifically considered what I had in front of me,” she said. “There wasn’t anything that supported it.”

Those self-righteous souls who just "know" that if a person just exercises his will, he can conquor the problem. Ignorance is bliss.

You seem to me to be deep into the AA way of life. Anyone who disagrees with you is either ignorant or in "denial", some mysterious condition making them incapable of seeing the truth. If AA works for you, great, but for most people who quit, millions in fact including President Bush, they simply get fed up with drinking and quit one day, for good. They do not join a cult and load a host of self-replicating mind viruses. None of this one day at a time stuff, just one poof and it's over. No meetings, no associating with drinkers who "relapse", no turning over control of their behavior to a higher power.

The big problem with viewing alcoholism as a disease is it gives the drinker an excuse to drink, absolving them of personal responsibility. That's not good.

Denial exists as denying something to others, but it is not possible to lie to yourself. If you don't think you have a drinking problem, you don't. If you have one, you know it. Convincing someone they are "in denial" if they don't agree with something is cult talk. AA has a high failure rate. Quitting for good one day has a good success rate. Millions of people succeed at this, without joining AA. My point is AA is not the only answer out there, and that many of the mind viruses of AA, such as that drinking is a disease, are more harmful than helpful.

One thing about the Clinton years is that liberals hijacked many AA mind viruses and ran with it. It was very appealing because they could absolve personal responsibility for just about anything. Clinton at one point claimed he had a sex addiction, thereby it wasn't his fault. It was shameful.

I've seen that behavior in some people with addictive personalities as well as Asperger's Syndrome -- a mild form of autism -- also in people with obsessive compulsive disorders.

But note -- none of these have to do with will power. They all have to do with the way the brain is wired.

I think the "disease" debate has to do with the way we define disease. TB is a disease. You can isolate it. Look at it. Cure it with antibiotics. But diabetes is also a disease that has to do with a genetic trait, just like alcoholism.

"The big problem with viewing alcoholism as a disease is it gives the drinker an excuse to drink, absolving them of personal responsibility. That's not good."

Your supposition is totally incorrect and might I add -- insulting. The fact that alcoholism is a disease excuses me from nothing. Never has, never will.

I had heard alcoholism referred to as a disease long before I quit drinking. The same has been true for hundreds of thousands of other alcoholics who have achieved sobriety over the last almost-40 years. So it appears that NONE of us has felt we were 'absolved' from a blasted thing.

Saying an alcoholic has a disease means they are a victim of a bodily disorder, lifting a burden off their shoulders, placing the blame on a chronic medical condition. It's not their fault. They're poor victims.

Even if true, it's not helpful to think of a drunk this way. This give them a socially acceptable excuse at their finger tips to "relapse".

By saying it is not a disease but a behavioral choice problem, it puts the burden back on. Although not appealing to the drunk, it assigns blame back on them, and sets the stage for them to take back higher brain functioning control of their decision making.

This idea should not insult you. Drinking is a dangerous pastime and we shouldn't play word games with medical terms.

What benefit do you derive from calling alcoholism a disease? One benefit AA derives is it keeps their members and grows their base. All organizations want to grow and so this is useful to them. But blame shifting is not helpful to someone wishing to quit drinking forever and for good.

The benefit derived is to focus a course of study/investigation to better understand it. No drunk who has lost his family, job, savings, lifestyle, friends, etc. etc. etc. wants to be a drunk. Yet the compulsion to drink over-rides these considerations. Why? What's the neural mechanism?

Putting the burden on the drunk by citing will power, lack of morals, etc. propels the argument back into the Victorian age and halts scientific inquiry, which doesn't usually delve into moral issues.

Again, You don't know of what you speak. If you are not an alcoholic you won't and never will understand.

I do know about it I have both observed and lived the phenomenon. I have studied the pathology, epidemiolgy and the biology of the disease, have you?

AA is not a cult anymore than church is a cult, it is a voluntary association of people with the same problem. The only "mind virus" I see is the hate speak coming from people such as yourself. Are you afraid of something? Maybe you have a problem yourself? I'd be glad to talk about it with you.

Millions of people don't make it and of all cessation programs AA with it's paultry 10% success rate has the best record. People fail because they are unwilling to risk letting go of trying to control the disease. There is a difference between heavy drinking )like President Bush) and alcoholism.

"The big problem with viewing alcoholism as a disease is it gives the drinker an excuse to drink, absolving them of personal responsibility. That's not good."

No it's not, but that is also not true. AA does just the opposite. They tell you that having alcoholism is not your fault, but staying active in it is your fault. Taking personal resposibility is a primary tenet of AA.

You need to inform yourself before you spout off and demonstrate your ignorance.

No drunk who has lost his family, job, savings, lifestyle, friends, etc. etc. etc. wants to be a drunk.

Over drinking is not a moral issue. It is a behavior decision making problem. Someone who half wants to quit also half wants to be drunk no matter what. In all humans, the half that wants to quit always has more mental power than the animal half that doesn't. But clouding the mental struggle as a chronic disease and not a decision making problem is not helpful.

There is no mysterious out of control neural mechanism forcing someone to lift a drink to their lips. Saying there is a mental disorder is just another angle in shifting blame. If someone has enough wits about them to drive to the liquor store, buy a bottle, unscrew the cap, and pour it down their hatch, they have enough wits not to as well.

One goal of the imaging studies is to develop medications that block craving.

Unless they're going to develop a pill for all possible cravings this is not a useful direction to go in. People need to develop their decision making skills, not pop pills for all problems.

The trend to keep highschoolers in line by drug testing randomly is also a bad policy. What are the kids going to do when Mother Highschool is no longer around? All these types of solutions try to do an end run around developing personal responsibility.

If you fund a carpenter to research drug addiction, he will tell you how to use a hammer upside the head. If you fund a medical researcher they will come up with a pill, and ask for more funding.

We need to get back to basics and hold people accountable for their behavior choices. Getting back to the original article posted, that's just what this judge is doing.

What we need to do is........everything. That means learning how the neural mechanisms work, try to develop drugs to block cravings, develop programs to deal with the psychology of addiction, etc. etc. etc. This addiction thing is a plague. And we need to understand the mechanisms...if you're advocating turning off the MRIs and PETs, unplugging the microscopes and spectrometers, then I couldn't disagree with you more. The more we know about the thing, the better we are able to combat it.

Saying there is a mental disorder is just another angle in shifting blame.

There's a pretty well excepted body of evidence that supports the conclusion that continuing to drink in the face of consequences including death is insanity (a mental disorder).

I don't know what you're trying to say anymore. It sounds like you're just arguing for argument's sake.

His fear of the science is a natural one. There is a misconception, shared by conservatives and liberals, that understanding a thing sometimes shifts blame away from the person doing the thing. Call it the "Oprah Syndrome."

It works like this: I stabbed the guy 28 times because I grew up in an unloving household and my parents were too poor to buy me a Tickle Me Elmo. So, it's not my fault.

Well, yeah, it's still the guy's fault. He had to make the decision to stab the other guy 28 times. On the other hand, now we know the connection between Tickle Me Elmo and violence.

The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. That is to say, personal responsibility and the human being as an organism that reacts to outside stimulus or genetic predispositions. It just takes a more subtle turn of mind, which many people can't accomplish.

Most drunks are not insane. They know exactly what they are doing: getting drunk!

What I'm saying is very simple: over drinking is a decision making problem, not a disease. And even if it is a disease it's not helpful to give drinkers that out. If their drinking causes injury or death to others: throw them in jail for a while. The last thing we should do is set them up in a hospital and give them expensive medical treatments which can not work.

genetic predispositions

I seek knowledge and respect science. But I reject anything that absolves someone of responsibility for their own behavior choices. Explaining the chemistry of addiction is interesting, but using that knowledge to develop a anti-craving pill is not a solution.

You're trying to make this problem more complicated than it is. Genetics is a raw material. It may whisper in your ear, but it is just a whisper and can always be overridden. Because genetics can be used to shift blame on many subjects, it is often used and abused in that context. I'm genetically Irish but that does not give me a get of drunk jail free card. Anything I do after I chose to get drunk is my own fault, and medical treatments or genetic research is of no use in improving my decision making skills.

Most drunks are not insane.

True. If you had said most alcoholics, I would disagree.

And even if it is a disease it's not helpful to give drinkers that out.

Maybe. See my post #108.

If their drinking causes injury or death to others: throw them in jail...

I agree. See my post #75. To the best of my recollection, anyone that posted an opinion on sentencing in this thread also agreed.

I can't tell for sure what you're getting at. If you are using the term "drunks" to refer to anyone that has gotten drunk, then you are mostly right.

If you are using the term "drunks" to refer to an alcoholic, then I disagree with some of what you say.

In my experience, those who are forced to make insulting and snide remarks in arguing there case have already lost. That is the second time you have suggested a drink. Do you have a drinking problem? I find that people who take themselves so seriously as to not be able to spot, nor enjoy a good natured joke have not just lost the arguement, but lost the game of life.

"So why did they start drinking alcohol?"

Because they are suffering from a disease called alcoholism...DUH!

It they knew they were alcoholics before they took their first drink (your claim), then why did they no ... NOT drink alcohol in the first place. You can't be addicited to a drug you have never taken. DUH!!!

I have never met an alcoholic who started out life deciding "I think I'll become an alcoholic. Gee, what a great idea, I'll start today."

Yeah, if they knew they would be an alcoholic, they would avoid it. People are are allergic to peanuts don't eat them either. Sometimes you just have to use some sense. What you are describing isn't alcoholism, it's mental illness.

The only people who have a vested interest in denying the disease nature of alcoholism are

People with an IQ. I have never met an alcoholic who started out life deciding "I think I'll become an alcoholic. Gee, what a great idea, I'll start today."

I agree. Getting the knowledge out there that if you drive drunk and kill someone you will go to jail for a long time will help people with their decision making process. And I agree that understanding addiction does not remove responsibility. But many people do try to use addiction knowledge for escaping the consequences. The judge in this story didn't buy it.

I seriously doubt that. I have yet to know anyone that said they were happier when drunk/active as opposed to sober.

I do. Alot of people as a matter of fact.

"My best day drunk was still worse than my worst day sober" is a very common comment heard from sober people.

I submit to you that these people have no idea how to party.

I wasn't talking about a tactical problem. I was speak about the craving and how it take over almost all of your thought processes.

Oh heck, when it's readily available it doesn't take over the thought process anymore than overeaters obsess about eating food, or football addicts will eschew normal socialization to get home and catch the game.

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