Now, I do know people that have had very crippling addictions. From booze to drugs to sex. Many in my own family. The ones who say “I can't stop, it is a disease!” try to manage the symptoms, but never kick it. The ones who own up to it, and realize “This is a habit I have chosen. It is my responsibility to work on.” are the ones who succeed.
Now, from what I understand about you (just from FR), you have taken those steps. You are calling your addictions a disease, and that has worked for you. So be it. But, in my experience with my friends, family, and coworkers, calling a habit or addiction a disease is most often enabling them to not change.
And Bill Clinton once referred to acid rain damage to the Taj Mahal as "stone cancer". By your logic we should take cancer less seriously, perhaps not even treat it as a disease because somebody once made a bad analogy ("used the same language") and likened it to something it's not. If I make an analog between a thing or concept "A" and a thing or concept "B", it may be either a valid, or invalid comparison. It may be a great, or poor analogy, but the relative quality of the comparison does nothing to change the fundamental character of thing "A" or thing "B" which remain two distinct entities.
"Now, I do know people that have had very crippling addictions. From booze to drugs to sex. Many in my own family. The ones who say “I can't stop, it is a disease!” try to manage the symptoms, but never kick it."
So if one of your family members were schizophrenic, but refused to take any medication because, "it was just a disease", would you tell them there's nothing wrong with them and they just need to be more responsible? Indeed, the exercise of their personal responsibility would be in accepting the fact that they have a disorder and seeking treatment for it.
If you'll note one of my early posts on this thread, I indicated that those who come down on either the nature or nurture aspect of alcoholism are only going to eventually justify the behavior, and that it has to be dealt with on a spiritual plane. Your relatives are only proving my point. Justification and excuse making, like the drinking itself are symptoms of the dysfunction.
"But, in my experience with my friends, family, and coworkers, calling a habit or addiction a disease is most often enabling them to not change....The ones who own up to it, and realize “This is a habit I have chosen. It is my responsibility to work on.” are the ones who succeed."
In my experience, those who (in your eyes) have "fixed" things by themselves have either never fully succumbed to alcoholism or have become very succesful in their ability to hide things from you and those around them.