What's the difference between addiction and disease?

Specifically, I’m talking in the order of alcohol and drugs. An alcoholic is said to have a disease. People who hold problems with illicit drugs resembling cocaine, marijuana, heroin, etc, and even legal drugs close to pain killer are said to be addicts. What’s the difference? Isn’t alcoholism a form of chemical dependency (addiction). Why is illicit drug dependency not see as a disease? Is the difference because alcohol is socially acceptable? I submit that an alcoholic is an user and not necessarily diseased, though liver disease may be present or coming.

Answer:
Terry, be patient next to me, I am getting to my point in adjectives caps below but I considered necessary to put some of this other info in also that I researched.

If alcoholism is a disease (and it classified as a disease as you know), it must be a mental disease. The mentally ill habitually deny they are ill and the first authorization of a mental illness is repeatedly when others notice that the afflicted being is behaving within unconventional, bizarre or self-destructive ways.

Like other mental illnesses, here is no blood or urine test for alcoholism. There is no physical familiar sight the healer can look for to identify the disease. All the signs are behavioral.

There are blood and urine tests for other drugs. I can't find anything where on earth there is something surrounded by alcohol that causes you to become addicted resembling say cocaine or nicotine, etc. Wow, the more I furrow the more unanswered question!

MAYBE IT IS BECAUSE THEY CANNOT PIN POINT WHAT THE ADDICITON FACTOR ITSELF IS (OR WHAT CHEMICAL CAUSES THE ADDICTION) WITHIN THE ALCOHOL SO THEY CALL IT A DISEASE? AND THEY CAN PIN POINT WHAT THE ADDICTION FACTORS (OR WHAT CHEMICAL THAT CAUSES THE ADDICTION) WITH OTHER DRUGS LIKE COCAINE, HEROIN, NICOTINE ETC, SO THEY CALL THAT AN ADDICITON AND NOT A DISEASE?? This is my personal opinion, I cannot find any information to rear this up, but to me it makes some sense.

It is a disease because it have been declared to be so by the especially ones who profess to have the cure for the disease. Actually, they don’t hold a “cure.” They have a remedy.

Again, not a black and white answer, I need I knew unquestionably for sure also. Oh well, I/we tried.

http://skepdic.com/sat.html
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20030401/1529.ht...
an addiction is not compulsory! a disease just happen! forexample, alcohol! it is your choice to drink and the flu! you can prevent the flu, but sometimes, it just happen!
All substance abuse stems from inner health of dissatisfaction with one's self and misgivings of the world around you...drugs or booze...same ****, different pile...I type from my own addicted experience.rwfm
They can treat a disease with medication,but an addiction can solitary get better next to time off of the drug and not using it again ever. I stopped smoking cigs 2 yrs ago,I hold not smoked a one since but sometimes I still have the urge to smoke. I other get my mind on something else and soon the urge will elapse. So I sometimes wonder if the urge to smoke will ever pass.


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