Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism As a Disease

Rating:
Summary: Demolisher of Myths
Review: After reading Fingarette's essay "Alcoholism and Self-Deception" in _Self-Deception and Self-Understanding_, I was eager for more of his unique and interesting perspective on problem drinking. In this short and very readable book, Fingarette steadily and easily demolishes the prevailing opinion that alcoholism is a disease in which the alcoholic loses control over his drinking. (The scientific community long ago abandoned this view, but it lives on as dogma through the recovery movement.) Fingarette instead explains problem drinking as the result of choices that elevate drinking into a "central activity" in the drinker's life. He argues that the motivations for the choices that make drinking a core value are as many and varied as are the individuals making them. My only serious objection to the book comes in the final chapter on social policy; Fingarette would seem to be happy to turn this country into a totalitarian state to prevent some people from making stupid choices about alcohol. Despite that flaw, _Heavy Drinking_ presents an impressive and well-reasoned case against the disease model of problem drinking.

Rating:
Summary: Ignorant, non-professional view on a scientific subject
Review: I think, Mr. Fingarette has as much authority to write on a subject of alcoholism, as he has on subjects of cancer, schizophrenia, or multiple sclerosis. It is remarkable that most books about alocoholism, written by professionals with doctoral degrees in clinical psychology, or medicine, enequivocally explain and support the scientific approach to achoholism as a disease, and as subject of psychiatry. And the medieval idea that alcoholism is a flaw of character, controllable by the power of will is, as always has been, proclaimed by the vocal laymen like Mr. Fingarette.

All major and most authoritative medical resources, such as American Medical Association and American Society of Addiction Medicine define alcoholism as a disease which is independent of and uncontrollable by human will and effort.

To the contrary, many laywriters and self-proclaimed experts of the human psyche attempt to trash the minds of their readers with false, couterscientific and socially dangerous ideas, which have already put staggering numbers (exceeding one hundred thousand by some sources) of mental patients behind prison bars, making the USA a focus of critique and condemnation of many human right organizations, such as our very own, US (NYC)-based Amnesty International <www.amnesty.org>

BTW, I have read Mr. Fingarette's book thoroughly and could find not even a single truly scientific evidence supporting his populist, but badly amatorish philosophy.

Better get this outstanding, easy-to-read, yet written by professionals book on alcoholism: Beyond the Influence : Understanding and Defeating Alcoholism by Katherine Ketcham, et al., available on amazon.com

Rating:
Summary: Alcoholism is a Serious Problem, But It's Not a Disease
Review: In 7 chapters, Herbert Fingarette, formerly a professor of philosophy at UC Santa Barbara, dispels the myth that alcoholism is a disease, while taking very seriously the social problem of alcoholic behavior.

In 1960 E. M. Jellinek published a book titled THE DISEASE CONCEPT OF ALCOHOLISM (p. 20). Alcoholics Anonymous members adopted this book as their scientific basis for asserting that alcoholism is a disease. But Jellinek's data was compiled by interviewing A.A. members. Thus, his conclusions were based on the reasoning of the very people who came to endorse his book. Furthermore, his research was based on only 98 interviews.

Today, the politics of alcoholism is big business (pp. 22 ff.). Conceiving of it as a disease enables treatment centers to receive payments from health insurance companies.

If somebody has cancer, you don't say, "You foolish person! You have cancer!" But when it comes to alcoholism, it is not unusual to find the relapsing drinker to be accused of having done something wrong. Many think the alcoholic, unlike the "canceric," has control. This, Fingarette argues, is in an important sense true, and shows the disanalogy between the disease of cancer and the PROBLEM of alcoholism. (Have you ever noticed that "alcoholic" is the dominant "-ic" in the U.S.? If you examine the word "alcohol," what is added to it is only "-ic." But when a person has a fancy for, say, chocolate, we don't say, "chocolatic," but rather "chocoholic." "Holic" always makes its way in, so obsessed are we as a society with alcohol.)

Heavy drinkers -- as Fingarette refers to what others call "alcoholics" -- do not become heavy drinkers for just one reason. Therefore, it is unclear that treatment should consist of just one variety. Twelve-step programs, in our society, play a role like that of various forms of fundamentalism both here and abroad, reducing problems to a formulaic response that is often insulting at best, and deadly at worst. The person is by-passed because the program directors "know" what the right thing is for the "patient" to do.

Controlled drinking programs are available in many countries (p. 128). In Europe, attitudes toward drinking are remarkably different from attitudes in the U.S., and these differences often make a difference in the way people actually drink. Stigmatizing behavior often reinforces the very negative behavior it seeks to prevent, especially in a country like the U.S. where rebellion is schizophrenically considered a virtue.

Fingarette discusses the GENETIC HYPOTHESIS on pp. 51-55. This is very important: IT HAS NOT BEEN PROVED. I have spoken with several substance abuse counselors who very nonchalantly remark, as though possessing conclusive scientific authority to do so, "It's genetic." We don't know that. We don't know that 12 steps to recovery is the gospel. Agents of recovery should consider adopting a more epistemically modest stance. But although this book would help them make a move in that direction, they can't afford to. Literally.

Rating:
Summary: This Classic Remains a Classic
Review: In the fourteen years since the debut of this remarkable work, Professor Fingarette's book continues to be vilified by the current Alcoholism-as-Disease paradigm as a sham, harmful to its readers, and that it should be banned from all major book stores. It is simply amazing how this book struck the paradigm at its core, and how they haven't gotten over the hangover.

This book is truth at its simplistic best. It is cumbersome to admit one's own culpability, and even harder for an alcoholic to admit that he is his own worst enemy. I know. I was one. After years of living in fear of the next drink, which surely would lead me to a single, inexorable destructive conclusion, works like Dr. Fingarette's "Heavy Drinking" had shown me that I was creating my own self-fulfilling prophecy, and that I indeed had the power to change, not just one day at a time, but forever.

Of course, this idea flies in the face of those who promote the disease concept of alcoholism. Naturally, the multi-billion dollar institution will not tell you that they have done nothing to help the addiction situation since the AMA self-servingly declared alcoholism to be an illness in 1956. They continue to tell the public that the alcohol problem continues to skyrocket.

The harshest attack on Dr. Fingarette's book is his assertion that alcoholics can learn to control their drinking. It has been proven time and again by several major studies since the 1960s. And yet, the disease camp, founded by the old unfounded addage "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic" spends countless millions in government-funded dollars promoting the idea that this is impossible. They have to. If they admitted that it was possible, their very essence would be threatened, and the industry would collapse.

Bravo to Dr. Fingarette for having the guts to stand firm in the face of such pressure and present the truth. It is only by the presence of more secure individuals like the good doctor when a real answer can be offered to those who abuse alcohol and drugs. The keys to success are motivation, values, morality (yes, what's wrong with living a morally decent life?), and maturity. Life is worth living, and the same joy that was once found in a bottle can be found inside the joys of parenthood, work, and success.

Rating:
Summary: The Alcoholism "Disease" Quandary
Review: The idea that alcoholism is a disease persists, with fewer and fewer followers. In my book God and Alcoholism, I review the many definitions which include "sin," "behavioral disorder," "nutritional disorder," "genetic problem," "sickness of the soul" and the more and more complicated others that have come since Fingarette's book. I like the book, and I like his discussion because he is not afraid to look at the problem as it is. A drunk drinks too much, gets drunker, and invariably gets in every conceivable kind of trouble. He chooses to drink. The "why" is not as important as the "what." He is self-destructing; and "powerless" is not a description of his situation. He can and does choose to drink even though he's been in trouble. He can and does explain his excess in a variety of excuses. He is, in fact, a risk taker - just like the smoker, the race car driver, the over-eater, and the child molester. They know the consequences yet choose to take a chance. As it says it the Book of James (a favorite in early AA), the temptation is man's problem, the enticement comes from other factors, the excess comes from devilish sources, and the end is death. Early AA proved the alcoholic is not powerless, can abstain, and can be cured - with God's help. Fingarette helps us understand why. http://www.dickb.com/cured.shtml

Rating:
Summary: The Alcoholism "Disease" Quandary
Review: The idea that alcoholism is a disease persists, with fewer and fewer followers. In my book God and Alcoholism, I review the many definitions which include "sin," "behavioral disorder," "nutritional disorder," "genetic problem," "sickness of the soul" and the more and more complicated others that have come since Fingarette's book. I like the book, and I like his discussion because he is not afraid to look at the problem as it is. A drunk drinks too much, gets drunker, and invariably gets in every conceivable kind of trouble. He chooses to drink. The "why" is not as important as the "what." He is self-destructing; and "powerless" is not a description of his situation. He can and does choose to drink even though he's been in trouble. He can and does explain his excess in a variety of excuses. He is, in fact, a risk taker - just like the smoker, the race car driver, the over-eater, and the child molester. They know the consequences yet choose to take a chance. As it says it the Book of James (a favorite in early AA), the temptation is man's problem, the enticement comes from other factors, the excess comes from devilish sources, and the end is death. Early AA proved the alcoholic is not powerless, can abstain, and can be cured - with God's help. Fingarette helps us understand why. http://www.dickb.com/cured.shtml