By: Hector Colchado
Alcoholism is not a disease.
Alcoholism is an infatuation and a want, either psychologically or physically.
But it is not an illness.
Dictionaries define a disease as a medical condition, a specific disorder and a considered problem in society, which is based on the general view from a political and medical consensus.
Alcoholism fits in the category of medical condition and even a problem in society if it were termed a disease.
The medical condition mainly involves hospitalization, but then that would be better termed as intoxication,
addiction, or dependence of alcohol instead of alcoholism.
If alcoholism is a problem in societies, it only makes sense to say that it is a metaphorical term for the problem, if it is a "disease."
If true that university, college, institutions and high school have several people with the "disease."
Students overindulge themselves with alcohol on weekends, and sometimes on weekdays, does not seem to be a type of disease.
The problem begins with the word known to college students, binge drinking, as a drinking form that has no limits of decreasing the gulps of alcohol in a certain time.
Students do not know their own limit sometimes ending the night with "brown-outs," "black-outs," and a nice hangover the next day.
Then after, a hangover still is nothing compared to an actual medical disease, it is more like the aftermath.
A cure for this problem would be a nutrition fact in the back of every alcohol beverage, specially a serving size to at least to have some order.
A person can be addicted to alcohol, can be physically dependant and can affect responsibilities, but it is not as harmful as AIDS, an actual disease.
A person with AIDS is nothing similar to a person who has the option to pick up an alcohol beverage and gulp it down.
AIDS does not have a cure and compared to alcoholism, a person cannot just stop having AIDS while an "alcoholic" can just avoid alcohol.
AIDS, cancer, flu and a fever will not nurse itself after a person runs out of money; he or she will get worse and die if not cured properly.
Once an alcoholic runs out of money then the dependence will go away slowly since there will not be anymore alcohol purchases, unless the dependence has gone so far that hospitalization was a requirement.
If alcoholism were a form of problem in society and a problem with a specific group of people then homosexuality would be rightfully a disease.
There is no such thing as a cure for homosexuality or alcoholism it is just a state of mind, a decision, an option and a habit.
Unlike alcohol though, homosexuality is not a problem people who do not except they way of life make it a problem.
Alcoholism is a problem, since there is a high death toll related with drinking and driving, abusive attitude, and unwanted pregnancies.
Drunks that drive tend to commit suicidal actions, since some fall asleep on the wheel or swerve out of control, but that is not a form of disease, it is more like gambling. (Gambling is not a disease either it is a compulsive attitude)
Every person that claims to be alcoholic is right, I agree with them and that include all 3.1 billion people that are on Earth and most of the animals.
A regular animal makes its own alcohol for example, cholesterol. So does this mean that every person is an alcoholic?
Talon Marks (CerritosCollege newspaper) 4/30/08 
