Alcohol and drugs are also a way of self-medicating or ignoring what they need to fix. Being high can also prevent them from developping or growing from their experiences because they always have an excuse or an escape.

Sorry Agnes...I agree with Aunt Messy on this one. My eldest brothers been a drinker since he was 12. He wasn't self medicating. He was introduced to alcohol and drugs by a family that lived in the woods next to our house. Leftovers from the hippy generation who thought drugs and alcohol expanded the mind..even in children. My brother has been high on alcohol and weed ever since...over forty years later. My father went through great expense and personal trauma trying to get my brother sober. In the end, we finally had to tell him the only treatment was to stop trying to fix him, stop giving him money and to let him know he was not welcome at the house as long as he kept drinking and getting high. When my father became bed ridden after a stroke and battle with dementia..my brother finally showed up..still drunk..still high...wanting to know where his inheritance was. My sister sent him packing.

@ Agnes. Nope. My sister just likes getting high. I don’t know if you could call her an addict, because the only long term drug of choice for her is either cocaine (and its derivatives) or speedballs (a charming mixture of cocaine and heroin - it’s killed a lot of people). ...///... That said, she hasn’t had a sober day since about 1979. The fact that she’s still alive is a bloody miracle. The only reason she’s not dead is a constant lack of cash and sheer dumb luck.

Ty BusLady

There is a genetic disposition to it.

Alcoholism IS a disease in that it can be passed from one generation to the next. It's not genetic or even viral, but families in which one parent is an alcoholic and one parent is an enabler have a greater likelihood of producing a child or two that are also alcoholic or drug addicts. Some...like myself..manage to avoid falling into the same addictive trap. My eldest brother became an alcoholic before my mother did. My other brother became an alcoholic while he was stationed overseas...he's in recovery. One became an addict because of his early exposure to it, the other was self medicating because of the trauma he endured at the hands of our drunk mother. It's a disease..just like any other addiction...and it needs to be treated as such.

A disease is not only something you catch from someone and give to someone elsr. Cancer is a diseade, but you do not catch it from anyone or give it to anyone else. There are so maybe we are that people get that are not contagious! I don't know where you "caught" your self-righteous attitude from, but maybe you should look up the definition of a disease.