Alcoholism a Disease? No Way

by Deborah Samons
(Orleans, In USA)

If you know you are predisposed to alcoholism, by gender, genetics or whatever, you CAN do something about it. I was a granddaughter, daughter and niece of alcoholics. It wasn't a secure life, it was pure fear of who would break into a fight.

I never had my friends to come for a sleep-over because I didn't know who would be the drunkest. Instead, I took all of my animals into the barn loft, made a bed and turned on the radio to escape the constant yelling and screaming. I was ashamed of my grandparents,father & Uncle and I turned to the animals I loved for comfort.

I do not think it is a disease, it's a choice and they chose to drink. They could just have easily stayed away from it. It's a choice. If you never pick up that first drink, you will never become an alcoholic. If you do start drinking, you've done it to yourself with no one to blame and no viable excuse to blame it on parents or peer pressure.

When your problem of drinking gets worse, it's up to that person to seek treatment and stop blaming others for THEIR addiction. I was born with Bi-Polar Disorder, that IS a disease and hereditary. I had no choice in the matter. It took many years to get a diagnosis and understand what it was. I blamed everyone in my family, especially my mother and where did it get me? NOWHERE. The buck stopped with me, I got treatment or eventually I would have died by my own hand. The blame game stopped and I'm taking control.

Eventually I will learn to manage this disease with lots of counseling and medication. It's a tough disease to understand and many facets to human behavior. For some, it's a shameful disease that no one wants to associate themselves with, I'm trying to overcome that and take offence to being the butt of jokes like "she's wacko or don't go around her, she's nuts". I shrug it off, although hurtful and sometimes cry in private, but I pick myself up and start over again. I have a life-long fight ahead of me, but if I can do it, with a real hereditary disease so can an alcoholic.