Thinking Aloud

Anybody who plunges into the study of the problems of alcohol addiction very quickly meets such phrases as “the alcohol addiction is an illness” or depending on the literature chosen to its opposition from the traditional one “the alcohol addiction is debauchery” to a more sophisticated one “the alcohol addiction is a rational choice”. This debate could be considered useless, because from a philosophical point of view it's no matter how you name the phenomenon its essence remains unchanged, however, is not so simple. The contraposition illness – not illness isn’t a dispute of two friends, but a well-heard echo of at least two (actually much more) scientific and viewpoint paradigms.

The novel of John O’Brien Leaving Las Vegas is, in my opinion, the shrillest novel I’ve read from the scope of drinking stories. Traditionally, it’s called a suicide note, for in two weeks after finishing the book the author shot himself. With regard to a human’s attitude to the alcohol two tendencies usually take place when drinking is at odds with other aspects of human life, at first there’s a desire to achieve harmony, to arrange drinking sessions in a way that they do not interfere (or in addict’s illusion even help) other aspects of life. Then a long and, as a rule, unsuccessful fight begins for the values attacked by alcohol.

My 10-year case of abstinence, although not unique, surely, is practically a blind-spot for the thousands of researches of the alcohol addiction. It’s easy to imagine an addict’s tiresome path, described traditionally as a set of relapses followed by rehabilitation programs, about three weeks of enjoyment of “new life”, new drinking bouts and repeated treatment. However, the researches contain next to nothing about those people who leave this circle.

In 2007 in the USA they tried to pass a bill defining the addiction as a chronic, relapsing brain disease.

There’re no medicines to treat the alcohol addiction. Those used nowadays (in the USA they use three types – Disulfiram, Naltrexone, Acamprosate) are just auxiliary ones. In general, we’re more than confident that no chemical agent, to cure the alcohol addiction can be invented at all, but let’s talk about it some other time. Even taking the addiction as an illness, this illness is treated by word, sometimes by magic.