Behavior Disease

Disease conceptions of mishavior are bad science and are morally and intellectually sloppy.  Biology is not behavior, even in those areas where a drug or alcohol is taken into the body.  Alcoholism involves a host of personal and environmental considerations aside from how alcohol affects the bodies of drinkers.  Furthermore, once we treat alcoholism and addiction as disease, we cannot rule out that anything people do but shouldn’t is a disease, from crime to excessive sexual activity to procrastination.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Stanton Peele, as quoted in 12 Steps to Destruction pp. 76-77