Brown Bag Alcoholic drinks date back thousands of years. Although no one quite knows of their original discovery, it seems likely that they have been a part of history since the beginning. Magnus Huss first coined the word (alcoholism) in 1849, being the first to classify the systematic damage that was attributable to alcohol.

The word alcoholism itself was not actually recognized in the US until the late 1930s, through the formation of the alcohol support group known as Alcoholics Anonymous or AA as it is sometimes referred to. AA does not actually give alcoholism a concrete definition, but recognizes it as something between an allergy and an illness with a team support method of accountability and responsibility being a way to control alcoholism.

It wasn’t until Doctor E. Morton Jellinek from New England came along that problems being experienced by chronic alcoholics were actually first classified. He defined the problem as a person through excessive alcohol consumption developed serious health conditions both physically and mentally. An alcoholic would also encounter both domestic and economical problems as a result of persistent alcohol abuse.

They therefore need treatment. This definition has seen many changes over the years by different medical affiliations. The American Medical Association currently uses the word alcoholism to refer to a particular chronic primary disease.

Some in the medical profession like Herbert Fingarette and Stanton Peele who really fall into the minority will not class alcoholism as a disease and it is more common for critics of the disease theory to classify the harmful effects of alcohol consumption as a result of heavy drinking.

So the definition of alcoholism remains an uncertainty meaning that it is extremely hard to detect, especially as there isn’t much to separate an alcoholic from a person who just drinks on regular basis. I am afraid that this debate will just have to continue and if you want to participate in finding a solution then you need to investigate what is going on over at the stopdrinking.org blog as this seems to be the only place which is putting an effort at all into finding the answer.