Stop Calling Alcoholism a Disease
Why alcoholism isn't a disease and why the language matters more than people realize.
Hear me out.
I’m not trying to sound dismissive, and I’m not here to mock or undermine anyone’s recovery. I’m just speaking as someone who knows addiction down to her bones.
I never used a bottle or a needle. Instead, mine came from a scale and a hundred bad choices I used to call “discipline.”
I was never officially diagnosed with an eating disorder, but I damn sure knew I had one. I know what it’s like to push until discipline becomes obsession.
To let “control” be your coping mechanism, and then double down the second that control starts to slip.
I created a mantra that was simple, warped, and deadly: eating is cheating.
The scale was both my barometer and my altar. I weighed myself multiple times a day, and the number dictated my mood, outlook, clothes, and even daily plans.
Desperate to avoid calories and “eat clean,” I did what I thought were clever hacks:
- Cinnamon sticks to keep my mouth busy (fun fact, they burn the crap out of your lips doing that).
- Sleeping with a heating pad at night to “sweat it off”.
- Waking up at 3 a.m. to run laps and work out in the dark with a headlamp as if I were training for combat.
- Diuretics, restriction, 'chew and spit', overexercising, bingeing, and purging.
- A diet of watery shakes, raw vegetables, cabbage soup, and packets of dry tuna.
- I made and drank so much carrot juice, my skin turned a weird orangey hue.
I lost even more weight. My hair thinned out, and I was always freezing cold.
And people praised me for it, admiring my willpower and envying my “success”. Meanwhile, I saw nothing but flaws and was starving the entire time, internally stressing about how long I could keep it all up.
And then, the house of cards finally collapsed. After I was sexually assaulted, my control shattered. My body revolted, screaming at me to EAT ALL THE THINGS!
I ate like I’d never eaten in my life. My hunger cues were wrecked; I could eat massive amounts and never feel full. When the fullness finally did hit, it felt like I was splitting open from the inside.
Peanut butter became my personal drug of choice, and I would eat it bowlfuls at a time, scooping it like ice cream.
And it makes sense now. It was dense, rich, salty-sweet, and comforting all at once. It lingered in my mouth, coated everything, gave me that hit of dopamine, and demanded another spoonful before I’d even swallowed the one I was shoveling in.
It was easy to get, and impossible to stop once I started. That’s what made it the perfect "fix".
I’d binge, hate myself, promise to “start fresh” tomorrow, and then do it all again.
And here’s the real bitch of it: No disrespect intended, but alcoholics can swear it off forever and still live. We all need food to survive, which means you have to face and consume your drug at every snack and meal.
Imagine telling an alcoholic the only way to recover is to sip a glass of wine at dinner every night, forever...
I was terrified at what was happening to me, but I hid it well…until I couldn’t. Eventually, I sought out a counselor to help me process so much: the feelings I hadn’t faced after my divorce, the grief of losing three immediate family members and a dear friend in quick succession, and overcoming the self-blame of the assault.
In those sessions, I finally understood how my “success story” had gone so very wrong: amid all that drama and trauma, I wasn't controlling my body like I thought I was, but rather, feeding two addictions.
One to thinness, obsessed with the effort of shrinking myself smaller and smaller. The other to food: the binges, the comfort, the rush.
The only reason nobody called it addiction was because of what I was addicted to.
So why does one get the dignity of being called a disease while the other gets dismissed as a character flaw?
The AMA christened alcoholism a disease in 1956, giving it legitimacy (and dollars). Now, insurance companies could cover it, and soon rehab centers were sprouting up everywhere.
On the surface, that looks like progress, right? I mean, compassion for those who were seen as weak and morally bankrupt is supposed to be a good thing.
But it was also about commerce. This new 'disease' generated billing codes, insurance payouts, treatment industries, and a whole new economy.
Soon, drug addiction gained the same legitimacy and billion-dollar rehab industry.
Meanwhile, compulsions like disordered eating, gambling, porn, or shopping have never gotten that same legitimacy, even though brain scans prove they are all neurologically identical.
And here's the sinister part: it wasn't because these disorders weren't profitable, but because they are too profitable.
There’s no lobby pushing to medicalize binge eating when the diet industry rakes in billions by keeping it a personal failure. There’s no lobby fighting to label gambling a disease when casinos literally bankroll entire cities.
And porn is a multi-billion-dollar global industry that thrives on compulsive use. Calling it an addiction worth medical treatment would threaten the very thing that makes it so lucrative.
So, in other words, if it’s drugs or alcohol, you’re sick and you can't help it.
If it’s anything else, you’re the problem, and you should fix it.
That being said, treatment does exist for those addictions. There are centers for eating disorders, gambling recovery, sex and porn addiction. But without the “disease” designation, those treatments don’t carry the same legitimacy, compassion, or insurance coverage.
They are relegated to personal rehabilitation projects you’re expected to fix on your own...if you can afford to, that is.
As George Carlin said, "When you control the language, you control thought". And here’s where language really matters because I’ve heard plenty of people excuse their alcoholism with, “I have a disease.”
Why am I talking about alcoholism? Because I'm surrounded by it. I've spent the last couple years living through the hell drugs and alcohol have wreaked on our family.
We've been the ones working to clean up the very real mental toll on the survivors while others deny the severity or hide behind the "disease" term.
And I'm sick of it.
I understand the power of that framing; it takes away some of the shame and makes recovery possible for many. But here’s the problem: when alcoholism is called a disease, it also becomes a weird little loophole. It gives people an out, a way to say, “I can’t help it, I'm sick.”
But if I ever tried to explain my bingeing or starvation that way, I would have been laughed out of the room.
Plenty of famous people have said the same thing: addiction is addiction.
Robert Downey Jr. has called it “a garden-variety disease.” Matthew Perry (RIP) called it “cunning, baffling, and powerful.”
Elton John admitted his bulimia was worse than cocaine. Jane Fonda said her decades of bulimia were “a prison I couldn’t escape.” Lady Gaga spoke about starving and binging her way through tours.
Demi Lovato has compared her eating disorder directly to drug use. Terry Crews went public about porn addiction nearly destroying his marriage.
They all describe the same cycle: obsession, loss of control, shame, relapse.
When a celebrity goes to rehab for alcohol or heroin, people applaud them and call them brave. But when they admit to bulimia or porn addiction, it becomes gossip, or worse, a punchline to something that isn't funny at all.
And that's why I've always stayed silent. Nobody ever knew what I was doing behind closed doors, and I've never spoken about my eating disorders until now.
The truth is, people praised me when I was losing weight, but no one ever saw the dark side of it. The nights I would hide, locked in that same cycle of obsession, shame, and relapse as any alcoholic or addict.
It was hidden, but it was still addiction.
My husband’s family has addiction woven deep within it. And yet he isn’t an addict. He is remarkably well-adjusted (thank God).
Which is proof to me that addiction isn’t binary; it’s not just nature or nurture, it’s both.
Right after we met, he noticed right away when I was skipping meals. He knew what was happening because he’d witnessed it before with a family member.
He told me he couldn’t, wouldn’t watch me do that to myself, that he was “waving the red flag.” That’s our private way of saying Hey, I can’t put up with this but I love you enough to call it out.
He waved it again, not too long ago, when my weight dropped quickly over the past year. But this time, it happened because I’d cut out processed foods and taken to mindful eating and healthy coping strategies for stress.
It took a lot of convincing to assure him I wasn’t falling back into those old patterns, but I know he still watches me when he thinks I don’t notice.
But I’m okay with that.
He keeps me honest, but more importantly, I keep me honest.
The truth is, I am in recovery of my own kind. Have been for a long time. But I never did twelve steps or anything like that.
Instead, I fought my way out of hell through 1:1 counseling, unflinching accountability, and a hard-won self-awareness.
I also left behind my Protestant roots, but not my faith. I believe in God, and Christ is my Lord and Savior.
I also believe wisdom shows up in many places if you’re paying attention: in Rumi’s poetry, in the Stoics’ reminders that pain is inevitable but despair is optional, in the Buddha’s teaching on impermanence.
In other words, I shamelessly cherry-pick whatever helps me stay the course.
And I still fight it every day, because those old fears are always right there, and the whispers in my brain still linger.
But every day, I choose not to listen. Every day is a choice to keep going, keep yourself in check, tap into the resources, and do the work so you never, ever destroy yourself or the people who love you.
So no, I don’t buy into this classification as “disease.” The brain doesn’t care about the delivery system, and I don't need a label to validate what I've survived.
But if alcoholism gets that distinction, then every other compulsion that destroys lives deserves the same. The way we talk about addiction and recovery directly impacts (in my humble opinion) how we treat the people who struggle.
Otherwise, stop pretending this is about science. We know it’s not.
And don’t you dare tell me my disorders were just weakness, while someone else’s was just sickness they can’t help.
That’s one thing I won’t swallow anymore.
Recommended Reading
On Addiction, Control, and Recovery:
- The Weight I Still Carry — My story of transformation, body image, and the fight that never really ends.
- Enough — On self-worth, limits, and why “holding it all together” isn’t the badge of honor we think it is.
- Beautiful Lies — How daydreams became both my escape hatch and my survival strategy.
- Sad Woman, Happy Coffee — A reflection on the small comforts we cling to when everything else is falling apart.
Heather P. is an essayist and longtime ghostwriter publishing unapologetic stories about trauma, reinvention, and the absurdity of real life.
Creator of Unfinished Business, a platform reaching readers in over 20 countries for its dark humor, emotional precision, and refusal of performative healing, whether the story is about grief, growth, or just getting through Tuesday.
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