ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that adherents of the disease model of alcoholism favor an alternative medicine, one with a relationship to allopathic medicine analogous to that of Christian Science or chiropractic. The apparent anomaly of "medicalization without medicine" is resolved when medicalization theory adopts a constructionist view of medicine as well as of deviance. Constructionist sociologists of science argue that science is a constructed set of rules for defining "truth". Multiple scientific worlds coexist, although some command more legitimacy and resources. Mainstream allopathic medicine generally has ignored attempts to medicalize alcoholism. Mainstream medicine may have broken the link between transcendence and healing, but it strongly survives in alternative medicines. Spiritual healing practices continue to be widespread, even in modern Western societies; the theory of medicalization would benefit from recognizing and studying them with as much care as it has devoted to conventional medicine.
