Alcohol addiction treatment

Alcohol addiction treatment is a distinct treatment from alcohol abuse counseling. Although the new term Alcohol Use Disorder is used for both , I prefer alcoholism or alcohol addiction for clarity’s sake. I really don’t see AUD catching on in alcohol addiction treatment programs. Alcoholics certainly have a use disorder, but I haven’t seen this disorder fixed so that the person can “use” alcohol normally.  We think of a disorder as something we try to correct. When we accept alcoholism as a chronic brain disease we seek solutions that achieve abstinence. Use disorder implies that something should be done to fix the disorder so that a person can use alcohol correctly, if they choose to do so. I never see this happen with alcoholics, even after they’ve gone through counseling to “treat” the disorder. I only see alcoholics try in vain, over and over, to drink successfully with the consequences getting worse as time goes on.

The “use disorder” is a symptomatic problem. The fundamental problem is alcoholism. Alcoholics have a use disorder because when they drink they lose control over a period of time. It’s an alcohol addiction problem that causes the use disorder, so I wonder why psychiatrists shied away from the term alcoholism? As I understand it, the change is to include alcohol abuse, but why include abuse in with dependence. There should be separate terms used for Alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Alcohol abuse, or misuse, can be correctly labeled a use disorder, and if a person is abusing alcohol to get through a bad divorce or a death in the family or a job loss, then, yes, the use disorder should be addressed, and the person can learn to use alcohol appropriately, if they so choose, not to drown out painful situations.

Alcoholism, on the other hand, is not situational and is not primarily a use disorder — it’s a chronic condition that causes use disorder among many other complications. The distinction, to my way of thinking, is important, because, if we blur the line between alcohol abuse and alcoholism, it might give the impression that both disorders are simply a difference of degree — they are differences of kind.