Thanks for the ping. I haven't been connected most of this past week. Awesome beach weeks here at the Cape. Alas, we're heading home in about an hour or so.
I'll chime in on the "not a disease side". It's not a disease in the literal, organic sense. This is something I’m rather closed minded about because part of the bedrock of my recovery is the abandonment of asking “why?”, “how?” and “what if?” Anyone who tries to raise those questions in me is trying to kill me.
On November 19th, 2001, I did seek medical help for recovery from alcoholism, and I did benefit from the treatment, but I doubt that the benefits I took from it were at the top of the list of the ones that the counselors wanted to convey. For me it was part of the process of giving up control, of accepting help, of doing what was suggested. I remember being in the nurse’s office at work that day like it was yesterday. He had the phone in his hand. He was dialing a local rehab, trying to get me in. It took four or five tries before he got through. All the while I was fighting the urge to say “just give me the number, I’ll call later”. That man was in the right place at the right time, to do the right thing. Thanks God I let him.
That said, who owns the word “disease” anyway? We spent the latter half of the nineties parsing words like “is”. If I think it’s helpful to tell someone to look at alcoholism as “diss-ease”, or that it’s a progressive, incurable, fatal illness, I’ll do it. Perhaps it’s a way to make a connection.