Many people claim that addictions are diseases.
Usually they are referring to alcoholism, or else to drug addiction. So far, no one has called cigarette-smoking a disease. But before we decide whether or not habitual drinking is a disease, we might distinguish between two types of alcoholic, namely, the non-drinking, or dry, alcoholic and the alcoholic who is drinking. Dry alcoholics, many of whom have been members of Alcoholics Anonymous for years, obviously are not drinking. But this is not to say that they no longer suffer from a chronic feeling of being controlled.