EDITORIAL

IT’S A SLAP IN THE FACE OF A.A.

New legislation designed to open doors for people with disabling diseases may be closing doors to recovery for alcoholics.

by Russ Pulliam

Buried in the fine print of a civil rights bill excusable,” he adds in his Sciences magazine in Congress is the question of whether commentary. alcoholics and drug addicts need more civil Trouble from the disease theory abounds rights. Or do they need to assume more when it is introduced into the legal system, responsibility for their own problems? especially as a matter of civil rights. Specialists The Americans with Disabilities Act is who help people get off the bottle emphasize the designed to open up doors of opportunity for responsibility of the alcoholic to recover and people with various kinds of handicaps, abstain from drinking. In the hands of lawyers, providing for ramps for wheel-chairs and though, the client is never at fault. It’s always the specially adapted restrooms in a wide range of fault of the employer, or the disease, or the places. The legislation already approved by the employer’s failure to offer treatment for the Senate and a committee in the House of alcoholism at the right time or the right place. Representatives, will come up this year in That approach suits the alcoholic just fine, Congress. because one of the symptoms of the problem is Underlying the legislation is the to blame everyone else. assumption that alcohol abuse is a disability that At this point, “civil rights” for alcoholics also deserves special accommodation, on the could hurt alcoholics badly. What’s needed for grounds that alcoholism is a disease a person is recovery is not civil rights, which leads to not responsible for getting. lawyers and lawsuits. The need is the alcoholic’s The disease theory takes many forms, growing sense of responsibility. sometimes pointing just to the physical damage One of the most effective responses to alcohol abuse does cause the body. Some alcohol abuse has been Alcoholics Anonymous, people can never control their drinking, and which places heavy stress on the responsibility genetics may be the cause. Proponents of the of the alcohol abuser through the Twelve Steps. disease theory argue that it has helped some “Make a searching and fearless moral people realize they have a problem, a need to inventory of yourself,” declares one step, get treatment and to abstain from alcoholic followed by, “admit to God, and to yourself, the beverages. But critics of the theory suggest that exact nature of your wrongs. Be entirely ready to it relieves responsibility for the drinking problem, have God remove all these defects of and they also note that the medical field has not character.” Other steps include restitution to come up with a sure cure. offended people. “The more psychologists and attorneys The principles of A.A. don’t include a list dismiss forms of misbehaviour as uncontrollable of civil rights for the alcoholic. Adding this compulsions, the less people are help problem to a legal list of disabilities is not just accountable for their actions – even when they bad law and bad policy. It’s a slap in the face of have harmed others,” writes Stanton Peele, a Alcoholics Anonymous and its work with people consultant with Mathematica Policy Research in for so many years. Princeton, New Jersey. So far drug addiction has been “Creating a world of addictive diseases successfully removed from the legislation, on the may mean creating a world in which anything is sensible grounds that drug addicts do not need

1

additional civil rights at a time when the federal of this legislation as well. Civil rights and alcohol government is declaring war on illegal drugs. abuse make a bad mix. The next sensible step is to take alcoholism out

Source: THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, March 1990

2