ABSTRACT
The origins of the disease theory of alcoholism are popularly thought to have coincided with the beginning of the alcoholism treatment movement following the repeal of Prohibition in the United States. In the classical understanding, man was set apart from the natural world, including all lower forms of life, as being a creature uniquely endowed with reason. The kernel of the new disease conception of habitual drunkenness, which was worked out fully in the early years of the nineteenth century, was the concept of addiction. The Alcoholics Anonymous model begins with the assertion of a qualitative difference between the alcoholic and all other types of drinker. Alcoholics, then, are different from other people in that they cannot handle alcohol safely. The Crucial Phase of alcohol addiction is defined, of course, by the onset of loss of control and we shall need to consider exactly what Jellinek meant by this.
