The disease of "Alcoholism"

I'm sorry, please take no offense but i lost you entirely after the first sentence.

Most of the population thinks of it as a "behavior" problem. Fact is that there iss a genetic marker on several populations (markers withing the short tandem repeat alleles) speciifclly the THIQ metabolism sequencing genes. These are uniwue markers that , have only recently been showing multiple allelic respones. In one case the THIQ metabolism is tied closely with certain body temperature maintenance sites. SO, it apears that many populations of people who were associated with ancestrl peoples who lived either in very cold or very hot temps have these alleles in excess (>55% of population(. Studies have shown that most alcoholics have ancestral ties rom Slovenian, Rus, Ruso=Nordic.Nordic, Gaelic, Innuit,Sino-Rus; Papuan, and desert Amerind and Arctic Asian populations. SO far the studies HAVE NOT shown large allelic responses in Afro populations.

One of the difficulties in recognizing alcoholism as a disease is it just plain doesn't seem like one. It doesn't look, sound, smell and it certainly doesn't act like a disease. To make matters worse, generally it denies it exists and resists treatment.

Alcoholism has been recognized for many years by professional medical organizations as a primary, chronic, progressive and sometimes fatal disease. The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence offers a detailed and complete definition of alcoholism, but probably the most simple way to describe it is "a mental obsession that causes a physical compulsion to drink." More

The Scottish physician Thomas Trotter was the first to characterize excessive drinking as a disease, or medical condition.[7]

The American physician Benjamin Rush (1745–1813), a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence — who understood drunkenness to be what we would now call a "loss of control" — was, perhaps, the first to use the term "addiction" in this sort of meaning.[8]

My observations authorize me to say, that persons who have been addicted to them, should abstain from them suddenly and entirely. 'Taste not, handle not, touch not' should be inscribed upon every vessel that contains spirits in the house of a man, who wishes to be cured of habits of intemperance.[8]

Rush argued that "habitual drunkenness should be regarded not as a bad habit but as a disease", describing it as "a palsy of the will".[9] His views are described by Valverde[10] and by Levine:[8]

Between 1980 and 1991, medical organizations, including the AMA, worked together to establish policies regarding their positions on the disease theory. These policies were developed in 1987 in part because third-party reimbursement for treatment was difficult or impossible unless alcoholism were categorized as a disease. The policies of the AMA, formed through consensus of the federation of state and specialty medical societies within their House of Delegates, state, in part:

"The AMA endorses the proposition that drug dependencies, including alcoholism, are diseases and that their treatment is a legitimate part of medical practice."

In 1991, the AMA further endorsed the dual classification of alcoholism by the International Classification of Diseases under both psychiatric and medical sections. Wiki