Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease

by Herbert Fingarette

Heavy Drinking informs the general public for the first time how recent research has discredited almost every widely held belief about alcoholism, including the very concept of alcoholism as a single disease with a unique cause. Herbert Fingarette presents constructive approaches to heavy drinking, including new methods of helping heavy drinkers and social policies for preventing heavy drinking and the harms associated with it.

Genres: Cultural, Nonfiction, Psychology, Health

166 pages, Paperback

First published January 10, 1988

About the author

Herbert Fingarette was an American philosopher and emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles under the direction of Donald Piatt.

Fingarette's work deals with issues in philosophy of mind, psychology, ethics, law, and Chinese philosophy.

Reviews

[Ann Kuhn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Difficult to rate because I'm not sure if I rating the writing or the opinions expressed. I started reading this book with an open mind. While the author's arguments are convincing in one way, the overall experience is very academic; I get the feeling that he has never really seen a real life alcoholic struggle and that he is writing his thesis because he needed to pick a topic! I cannot argue fundamentally with any of the arguments he makes, but my personal experience tells me that even if alcoholism is not a disease, there is something other than drinking as a "central activity" that creates a locus of addiction which is extremely difficult to extricate oneself from in spite of the most absolutely pure, disciplined and will-powered set of intentions. In fact this is what makes alcoholism so baffling. Thought provoking, if nothing else. Perhaps a little dated as well.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Heavy Drinking” is an important book; it is a brave book & simply makes sense. In about 140 pages Herbert Fingarette, formerly a professor of philosophy at UC Santa Barbara, dispels the myth that alcoholism is a disease, while taking very seriously the social problem of alcoholic behavior.

Since its debut this book has been vilified by the current Alcoholism-as-Disease paradigm as a sham, harmful to its readers & that it should be banned from all major book stores. It is simply amazing how this book struck the paradigm at its core.

This book is truth at its simplistic best. The author states & shows that alcoholics can learn to control their drinking. It has been proven time & again by several major studies since the 1960s. Yet, the disease camp, founded by the old unfounded adage "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic" spends countless millions in government-funded dollars promoting the idea that this is impossible. I have always wondered how a Christian can agree with that statement yet proclaim that when a person becomes a believer in Jesus Christ he is a new creation!

The author also discusses the genetic hypothesis (pp. 51-55). This is important: IT HAS NOT BEEN PROVED. I have spoken with several substance abuse counselors, & heavy drinkers who very nonchalantly remark, as though possessing conclusive scientific authority, "It's genetic." We clearly don't know that.

In fact I would say that everything you thought you knew about alcoholism is probably wrong. As you read this book, this inescapable truth will amaze & bewilder you. Most shocking, the research community has known for DECADES that there is no such thing as "the disease of alcoholism", but has withered in the face of the powerful (and supposedly useful) "disease" culture firmly engrained in our contemporary society. If you are not moved by the large body of research and near uniform agreement among serious researchers referenced throughout this book, you'll be hard-pressed to deny the simple logic by which the disease concept of alcoholism is systematically destroyed.

He also refutes the argument that alcoholics not in some kind of program are doomed by showing that fully 30% seem to recover completely on their own, regardless of circumstances of treatment or cause.

The problem is that people have made decisions over a period of time in which for them drinking has become the 'central activity' in their lives, around which almost all revolves.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

My participation in a family member's substance abuse treatment program had begun to make me a bit skeptical about the disease model of addiction. I happened across Fingarette's book and found it crystalized my doubts, and clarified the related problems of physical addiction, psychological habituation, and compulsive consumption in ways that were both realistic and fact-based, while also explaining how the disease model had grown to dominate the treatment field. In brief: you can hardly blame the founders of AA and related programs for promoting the idea that addiction is a disease, an incurable "allergy" to psychoactive substances, because before abusers were able to lay claim to being victims of a medical condition, society's attitude towards them was largely harsh and moralistic. Having an "illness" gave them some latitude to deal with an often intractable problem. As it happens, though, that theory is utterly unfounded in medical science, and presents its own set of obstacles to people who are trying to come to grips with their dysfunctional relationship with their "drugs of choice"...

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful book on the relatively recent labeling of alcoholism as a disease and the data that refutes it. This is really a reason for hope because if it's not a disease you are not under its control.

[Chant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Debunked the “myth of the drunkard”. If only Wilfrid Sellar read this book..

[P · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars not really for the quality of the writing, which was good, but because a book titled "Heavy Drinking: the Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease" by a man named Herbert Fingarette, picked up in a hippy bar's bookswap area that actually makes coherent points is a pretty rare find. Apparently this guy is a somewhat respected scholar, and he doesn't say anything that isn't common sense: i.e., alcoholics aren't helpless victims, The just have a habit that happens to impact more people than overeating or getting stoned a lot, and they won't change until they personally take responsibility for their actions and their lives.

[Juli]

A whole new take on the disease concept of alcoholism.
Very thought provoking- challenges some of the most foundational beliefs about alcoholism. Fingarette points to significant scientific research that backs him up on most of his points.

[Barry Bridges · Rating 2 out of 5]

Academic Tome.

[Peter Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent text. Approachable and yet immaculately researched.