D" Is for Disease

WHEN I WAS graduated from medical school, fifty years ago, I was young, intelligent, and confident that I had set a foundation for a rewarding, prosperous, and enjoyable life. I was unaware that alcoholism was lingering close to me and would overtake me, slowly at first, then in a more accelerated but subtle fashion. I did not know that I was beginning to suffer from a disease. It was in 1958 that the American Medical Association declared alcoholism a disease. It has been said many times that it is a physical, mental, and spiritual disease. I am convinced now that it happens in reverse order: the spiritual illness first, then the mental consequences, then the pathophysiological consequences.