oncludes:
The question of whether or not a given condition constitutes a disease involves issues of politics and ideology - questions of definition, not fact. The disease concept of alcoholism has a long history in America and has been supported both by medical and non-medical people and organizations for a wide variety of reasons. (p. 370)
The disease model has been perceived as breaking down in several aspects in recent years, and even adherents suggest alternatives to the unitary disease conception. Instead, they have suggested that there may be no such thing as a "typical alcoholic" or a unitary "alcoholism" but that instead there may be several different alcoholisms, which would be amenable to different treatments once they were detected, assessed, and diagnosed (Miller, 1986, p. 123).
Cahalan (1988) states that the disease model of alcoholism has had both positive and negative effects upon not only the treatment of alcoholism, but also on the quality and economics of medical care. He also
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