Addiction is no excuse for avoiding responsibility
One response to the previous set of posts on a libertarian-themed e-groups list was, “Attributing misbehavior to alcoholism or other addictions provides people with an easy way to evade personal responsibility.”
Not if you redefine alcoholism.
Alcoholism is commonly believed to be a choice, because it is defined as a loss of control over use. The question I asked as I began my research was, what does it look like before there is such a loss of control–in most cases, decades earlier?
Alcoholism is, as I have redefined it, a genetic disorder that causes the afflicted person to biochemically process the drug alcohol in such a way as to cause that person to act destructively, some of the time.
This, like diabetes, has nothing to do with choice.
You would logically ask, then why wouldn’t the person so afflicted stop at or near the get-go voluntarily? Because perversely, it also makes the afflicted feel really good–and I mean in a way unlike that of the non-afflicted. He feels like he’s God. If I felt like I were God when I drank, I wouldn’t want to stop, either.
And BTW, this does not abrogate personal responsibility. In fact, the cure for addiction, if there is one, is to impose consequences for misbehaviors. That is the essence of responsibility.