I've been sober for several years, after a lifetime of frequent binge boozing. I spent much of my adult life marinating in booze. Sporadic harder stuff but by far, mostly booze. A snazzy bistro opened a half mile from my house a couple years before I quit. They opened at 4pm with a 1 hour happy hour ($3 pints). I was there when they opened, 2-3x/week, where I would polish off 4 pints before 5pm. Usually I would have a couple more, then walk home. Where I would start my 'serious' evening drinking. Just so you know where I was at re consumption. During my 'vodka years' (no beer for 6 years) it was way more dangerous, but hey, variations on a theme.
I've attended AA meetings, maybe 15, maybe 20. I loathed most of them. They're all relentlessly depressing. I lost my job. I lost my license. I lost my family. I was arrested. I was in jail. Over and over and over, every single meeting. Apparently this sharing is helpful to ppl but I found it not just a giant bummer but everyone talks about drinking. I don't want to talk about, I don't want to think about it.
I quit cold turkey (after endless quitting attempts) one random hungover weekend. 1 week became 1 month became 2 months, etc. Anyhoots one of my anti AA reasons are the speakers who mention they've been sober for 5 years, or 12, or 22, or whatever long length.
If you've been sober for 3+ years, you've looooooong since overcome the bottle. You're good. You're strong. You overcame it. But more to the point, you did not 'cure' yourself of a 'disease.' You didn't cure yourself of a disease for the same reason cancer patients don't 'cure' themselves by attending support groups, following steps & drinking bad coffee. You quit drinking. You did not have leukemia and 'cure' yourself by being mentally strong.
In one of life's great ironies, my pops was one of the nation's top contrarians regarding the disease model of alcoholism. He was actually pretty (in)famous for it, at least in the recovery industry.
I'm part native american and was long ago convinced that my college drinking 'flipped the switch' and lit up whatever gene we carry. That's why I drank so ferociously. One uncle died from it. Another would have but quit in his 30s. Regardless, this wasn't a disease that got flipped on, an addiction maybe, but so is smoking & caffeine. Quitting smoking was as hard as the bottle, but nobody calls smoking a lot a disease.
So to finish up: why is alcoholism classified as a disease? Figure it out yet? Simple: massive, endless piles of health insurance money. Recovery from alcoholism is, quite literally, a thriving industry esp in MN & CA.
Further reading, here's a site I stumbled upon: