The epistemology of "addictive disease": the Lincoln-Douglas debate

This research was conducted to examine the social perception of "addictive disease." This study provided an opportunity to gain insight into a representative sample of terms and phrases that were denotative of disease and then factor analyzed how these items clustered to reveal a spectrum of underlying factors that contribute to the perception of disease. It was expected and confirmed that subjects could discriminate between behavioral and biological disorders. In addition, the results support the view that the addictive "disease" model is a symbolic substitute for the moral turpitude model which it replaced. Finally, the findings support the view that non-physicians are capable of making fine distinctions among a number of biologically related "diseases." These results suggest that it may be important for health care providers to carefully and instrumentally apply their language to facilitate patient compliance with treatment protocols.