The disease concept of alcoholism: a review.

Answering the question, 'Is alcoholism a disease?' has far-reaching implications for the alcoholic in treatment, judgments about the professional responsibility and competency of particular groups (physicians and nurses, psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists and recovering alcoholics), and for the epidemiologist whose job it is to define the problem an suggest ways of preventing it. Having provided the reader with the evidence pro and con that alcoholism is a disease, the implications of accepting the disease concept will be examined.