Joseph Gerstein, M.D. F.A.C.P., Harvard Medical School: Schaler drives a stake into the heart of the 'disease' concept of addictions. Millions of people have stopped smoking, abusing mind-altering drugs, and drinking addictively on their own, without the intervention of counselors or doctors or programs.

Fingarette aims to refute evidence that alcoholism is a disease. Rejecting the terms alcoholic and disease, he points out that many "heavy drinkers" do not experience craving and/or loss of control, can engage in controlled drinking, and have spontaneous recovery.

The growth of addiction treatment in the United States, predicated on the idea that alcoholism and addictions of all kinds are diseases, is a public-relations triumph, and not a triumph of reason or science.