Why Is Alcoholism Considered a Disease, but Not Smoking? Are Food Addicts Considered Diseased?

Question by nunuvyobizniz: Why is alcoholism considered a disease, but not smoking? Are food addicts considered diseased?
Why would alcoholism not just be called an addiction like smoking or doing drugs? And if doing drugs is obviously worse and illegal than smoking, then why don’t we just call smoking a crutch? Or why don’t we call all smoking and drug addiction a disease as well? So, would food addicts also be considered diseased? Because it can be just as dangerous. Who made up these rules as to what’s a disease, what’s a crutch, and what’s an addiction?

Best answer:

Answer by Ginny Jin
well a disease is something that is spread or contagious or causes infection. Alcoholism is more of an illness.

Answer by raysny
Alcoholism became a disease only because the AMA voted it to be a disease at the urging of Marty Mann, former PR woman who successfully made Alcoholics Anonymous the favored method of treatment in the US.
http://www.roizen.com/ron/mann.htm

The most convincing argument for alcoholism/addiction being a disease
comes from Gorski:

“If alcoholism is defined as a disease, it will be treated as a healthcare problem. As a result, alcoholics will be assured the right to receive appropriate medical treatment for this disease. The treatment of Alcoholism will be covered by health insurance and other health care financing plans in both the public and private sectors. The appropriate health care groups will be mobilized to support its treatment. And, most importantly, ongoing biomedical research which relates alcoholism to other diseases will be funded.

If alcoholism is not defined as a disease, we will be making the decision that it does not rightfully belong within healthcare. Alcoholics, then, will be denied access to vital healthcare services.

Insurance and other health care financing plans will exclude alcoholism.

Alcoholism, which is responsible for 30% of all inpatient hospital days and nearly 50% of emergency room visits, will be divorced from the medical field. As a result it will never be fully integrated into our health care system.”

There it is, the ECONOMIC reason that alcoholism called “disease”.

Over the years, the definition of the word ‘disease’ changed so that it might include alcoholism.

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