That's what the medical community thinks. Addiction and/or disease. See Danzigs Wiki source.

Sorry Vic...I don't buy it. You want to call them diseases...fine. One disease you have absolutely no control of getting it, the other "disease" you have complete control of getting it. You should be ashamed of grouping them together as similar.

Baze had a huge career in front of him and threw it all away for booze. He's weak...end of story.

There is a point when people are alcoholics that even if they know they should stop they cant. Even if they can make up their mind to do it their body cannot physically do it because it could kill them. Its worse than heroin as far as its toll on the body. I do believe some people are more disposed to addiction than others just like some people's bodies are more prone to illness.

So people who get skin cancer and die from it deserve what they got because they didnt wear sunscreen or stay out of sun? They had a choice you know.

They just had one of the most horrific spills I have ever seen at Charles Town. Holy shiat.:eek:

8 of 9 horses and riders down.

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. People who get any kind of cancer get choices after they are first diagnosed. They have a choice if they want it to go away...they have complete control. All they have to do is stop having cancer. Very similar to alcoholics who have the choice to stop after they become alcoholics.

Congrats....you are now a coupled entry with Stauffer in the next running of the Douchebag Derby.

That is interesting considering that you insulted another poster just the other day as "an alcoholic loser."

Not recognizing alcoholism as a disease is like assuming that the mentally ill just need to "snap out of it."

Defined:

In a 1992 JAMA article, the Joint Committee of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD) and the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) published this definition for alcoholism:
“Alcoholism is a primary chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. The disease is often progressive and fatal. It is characterized by impaired control over drinking, preoccupation with the drug alcohol, use of alcohol despite adverse consequences, and distortions in thinking, mostly denial. Each of these symptoms may be continuous or periodic.”

Actually many will say that humans do have control over getting many forms of cancer and other diseases.

It's a medical certainty that smoking makes a person much much more likely to get lung cancer and or emphysema.

Chewing tobacco greatly enhances ones chances of being afflicted with throat cancer.

Bad diet and obesity contribute to diabetes.

I could list a myriad of others.

Your statement is preposterous.

I would have thought you may have commented on another subject other than Cancer and Diabetes today.

F U you uncompassionate jackwagon ......you are so stupid it amazes me you can even type.

While at Del Mar the first week of August 2011, I took special notice of Tyler. I disagree with those who said he was riding poorly.

He was doing the best he could without the best of mounts, which is all one can ask of or expect from a rider trying to rebuild his career after returning from an injury. His horses often ran better than it appeared they would on paper. And he loved on those horses.

Another thing--we know that his injury threatened him with blindness and that surgery was required to repair his eye sockets and such. We also know that his nose was broken and that additional surgery was required to fix his nose. Does anyone know, can anyone confirm, whether or not he also required reconstructive surgery on his face? It's not that I could see scars; his skin and features looked fine. It's just that he didn't look like the Tyler I recognized before the accident. His face seems distinctly changed--not simply his nose but his mouth and the angles of his cheeks and so on.

At any rate, I think he's an amazingly talented jockey who has been through hell the past year, and I wish him every success in whatever he decides to do with his life. If that decision means coming back as a jockey, then godspeed to him. He has my support and my respect.

People get addicted to high fructose corn syrup, aspartame and msg. You're not going to see too much government funded research on it. It's a soft kill.

When you feel sorry for people with food addictions and defend them like alchys then I'll believe your feigned outrage. Until then shut the f.uck up. You've ruined a thread because you have to overblow everything.

Bite Me

For those of you who do believe alcoholism is a disease and not a choice, where do you draw the line?

Is gambling a disease? Is smoking a disease? Is drug abuse a disease? Is being obese a disease? Is masturbation a disease? Is being religious a disease? Is picking boogers a disease? Is bad driving a disease? Is doing any activity that may cause you, your family, or society pain, a disease?

The list could be endless....

Our society has become so co-dependent in virtually every aspect of our lives that NO ONE takes responsibility for their own choices and actions.

It is pretty sickening.

didn't see the connection when genuine risk said that earlier in the thread, and still don't see it now. because someone has an opinion about one doesn't mean there's a correlation to the other. posting the definition again probably won't change minds either, since everyone had the ability to read further down in that link i posted that shows not even the entire medical community agrees that alcoholism is a disease. if a trained professional disagrees, why are you so shocked that posters here have their own thoughts on the matter?

Alcoholism is a lifestyle choice, a surroundings choice, and ultimately an access choice.

Example- Take an alcoholic(Josh Hamilton) and move him to Saudi Arabia. Miraculously, he will be immediately "cured".

Now, lets take a cancer patient(Gary Carter) and move him to a country who prohibits cancer....

You think alcoholism is a choice? You think someone would choose to be an alcoholic?

Being a sober alcoholic, a prostate cancer survivor, open-heart surgery patient with an artificial heart valve and pacemaker, currently rehabilitating from a brain hemorrhage stroke I believe that part of treatment is approaching maladies as diseases. I drank most of my life with few major problems except for some bad handicapping then it all changed one day. There's a long line and distinguished lineage of alcoholics in my family history. Whatever you call it, I applauded any successful treatment over ego that saves lives.

Speaking only from my own experience, alcoholism is not a lifestyle choice. I would have never in a million years chosen to be an alcoholic, but I am. Trust me, I would give my left nut to able to drink like a normal person. I sat with my good buddies MaTH and BT at dinner one night last week in Tampa, and watched as they both had 2 beers with dinner? 2 Beers?!? are you kidding me? My mind can't grasp the concept of just 2 beers. I have never been able to have "just 2 beers." Once alcohol enters my system, it just craves more and more. It's the way both my mind and body are wired. I quit drinking for 3 months one time after a car accident and thought for sure that I was cured and that I didn't have a problem. I went out one night with some friends and got drunk...and then got drunk again the next night and the night after that, etc...inside of 1 month of starting to drink again, I was shotgunning beers at 10am in the morning at work, just so I would quit shaking and so that I could make it through the day. You really think someone would CHOOSE to live like that? Come on...you're better than that. I could pick up a drink today, and nothing in the world will have changed. My only option is 100% abstention. I will always be an alcoholic, even if I manage to stay sober the rest of my life.