Alcoholism is a medical disease. Inherent in this definition, alcoholism is an illness that develops from chronic exposure to the chemical, ethanol. As such, it is an earned disease. Individuals are not born alcoholic, though certain risk factors, including heredity, environment, and personality traits, are all strong contributors to the likelihood of developing an alcohol use disorder. Yet, without the physical act of drinking alcohol with sufficient frequency and quantity, a person who may have a substantial number of those risk factors will never develop the disorder. Once the cycle of...