Is Alcoholism a Disease?

A lot of people in the world, including health and medicine experts, call alcoholism a disease. Actually, it is wrong, alcoholism is more like a behaviour pattern - an unhealthy, immoral lifestyle which leads to a lot of problems in your social, economical, physical and mental condition.

Do this mean that you need to stop worrying about your drinking habits? No, definitely not. If you are a heavy drinker and probably an alcoholic, you surely need to work with yourself and try to find the way how to be sober. Actually, if you position this problem as a behaviour problem, it's a lot easier to work your way down to the freedom, because you understand now, that you are not having any physical or mental health problems. Most likely, you are a healthy person, just a lot of things have been screwed up due to this drinking habit.

So, you have to treat this condition calmly and need to work with your personality, daily routine, habits (not only the drinking habit), attitude and the way of thinking. Most likely, you will need to switch to a different social group, or, in other words, avoid going out with friends who involve you in drinking activities. Some people need to find other hobbies, other things to do in their leisure time. For example, I have switched between meeting my friends in the local pub on friday night to an actually more pleasant atmosphere with my female friends in a quiet, peaceful coffee shop and having some healthy food and a chat about interesting topics - it's a nice change without alcohol, without getting drunk and without a terrible hangover in the next morning.