Accepting alcoholism as a disease can go a long way in helping to understand the ways that addiction can affect the body and mind. For many years, health professionals have classified addiction as a disease, but it is still not largely thought of in that way by society. It doesn’t look or act like other diseases that we’re familiar with. However, addiction is a mental obsession with alcohol that can cause physical changes in the body. Our bodies naturally want to avoid pain, so the cycle of alcoholism continues as addicts drink to avoid withdrawal. Eventually, this disease progresses to a point that it shuts down the body’s organs. By understanding alcoholism as a disease, we can begin to de-stigmatize it and hopefully make it easier for alcoholics to get the support they need.
Understanding Alcoholism as a Disease: Exploring Addiction
Mental Addiction
Understanding alcoholism as a disease starts with accepting that it is a mental addiction. Everybody knows what it feels like to have a song stuck in your head. Alcoholism is very similar. Except with alcoholism, it’s impossible to resist the song playing. Eventually, your body makes you give in to your cravings to satisfy your mental obsession.
Physical Changes in the Brain
One of the ways that alcoholism as a disease can be similar to other diseases is that it physically changes your body. Heavy drinking can destroy pathways and circuits in the brain, which affect the way you make decisions. For instance, the parts of your brain that involve experiencing pleasure, pain, rewards, risks, and self-control. Because of these changes, it can be difficult for you to realize how much alcoholism is affecting your body and life.
The Body’s Defense System
Another way to help understand alcoholism as a disease is to take a look at the body’s defense system. Our bodies naturally try to avoid pain whenever possible. As your body is becoming dependent on alcohol or drugs, it becomes more and more painful to stop using them. Withdrawal can even be fatal in some cases. Our body wants to protect us from this pain, so it makes the drive to drink to prevent the withdrawal pain even stronger. This cycle is what makes addiction so incredibly dangerous.
Progression
Finally, when understanding alcoholism as a disease, it’s important to note that this pain-avoidance cycle also is what makes addiction a progressive disease. As our bodies adapt to alcohol, they need more and more to get the same ”high.” This makes an alcoholic drink more and more each time. The increase can be so gradual that an addict might not even realize when they get to a point where their addiction is out of control. This progression can eventually lead to dangerous health effects or even death.
Understanding alcoholism as a disease is important for helping our society to de-stigmatize it. There is often a lot of shame attached to addiction of any kind. Many people view it as a weakness or lack of self-control. However, medical care providers are now realizing that alcoholism is a disease much like any other disease. It changes our bodies physically, it changes our neuropathways and thoughts, and it is progressive. By tackling alcoholism as a disease instead of a weakness, we can begin to give more support to those who need it. Oftentimes, alcoholics wait for a long time because they are afraid of the backlash of admitting their addiction. However, the sooner they can get the support they need, the sooner they can get clean. And the sooner we can get an addict sober, the more harmful effects we can prevent.
