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Abstract The unique history of alcohol use in the United States has led to the ascendance of the disease theory as the dominant conception of alcoholism. Social-scientific research has consistently conflicted with the disease theory, but psychological and other non-disease conceptions of alcoholism are not well represented in the public consciousness, in treatment programs, or in policies for affecting nationwide drinking practices (Peele, n.d.). Conflict in the field has intensified in the last decade, …

…to be a psychobiological state rather than as comprising separate components of physical and psychic dependence (Gersabeck, 2000). Still, critics note that, similar to the disease theory, this model continues to identify alcoholism as a persistent internal condition of drinkers that exists in isolation from other motivations and psychological dysfunction (Peele, n.d.). One problem with this model is that alcoholics' behavior, like that of other addicts, is marked by its intermittent nature (Peele, n.d.).