"Resolv'd to drink no more": addiction as a preindustrial construct

The notion that alcohol is potentially addictive dates not from the late eighteenth century but from the early seventeenth century at the very least, as does the related notion that habitual drunkenness constitutes a "disease" in its own right. English pamphlets and sermons from the latter period would suggest that the two notions were first advanced by clergymen and other moralists, and only later found acceptance in the British and American medical communities. Seen in this light, the American physician Benjamin Rush (c. 1745-1813) was less an innovator in advancing the notion of addiction than the last great voice in a tradition already 150 years old.