Addiction & Recovery

Last edited Sun Jul 24, 2016, 08:12 AM - Edit history (1)

I've seen countless, endless discussions about whether addiction is a disease or not, and in all of these discussions, all of them, without exception, nobody, nobody except me, for some strange bizarre reason, asks for the definition of disease.

Addiction sure seems to fit both ordinary and medical dictionary definitions of disease. Similarly many other mental diseases like major depression and bipolar. (And all "mental" diseases are ultimately physical diseases anyway, because all cognition is entirely the product of the physical brain).

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/disease
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Alcoholism

All the medical and psychiatric associations that I know of classify it as a disease, and I tend, as a scientifically trained person, to side with the knowledgable unless given a reason not to. I have been given none.