I'm no expert on this in any way but have discovered this interesting paper of which I can only read the abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1545723 "Excessive drinking can cause physical disease and involve physical dependence without therefore being a disease itself." "The specific disease concept, associated mainly with the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, is contradicted by empirical evidence and unhelpful for preventive and treatment responses to problem drinking, especially for the effort to detect and modify problem drinking at an early stage."