Lady Liquor: The Racial Implications of the "Disease" Model of
Alcoholism Earlier in this series I wrote about the notion that
the desire for intoxication may be universal, and how that
connects with the “disease model” of addiction. The disease
model, as far as I can tell, first gained traction as an idea in
the 1930s with the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous. Groups
similar to AA, such as the Washingtonian Movement and the Oxford
fellowship (which AA cofounder Bill Wilson attended before
forming his own voluntary fellowship) had existed prior to AA's
formation, but AA took off in a way they never did, for a
variety of reasons. Alcoholism wasn't recognized as a disease by
medical and psychiatric associations until the 1950s – but the
disease model is now pretty firmly entrenched in our
understanding of chemical dependency. Personally, I don't think
it's an accident that AA was formed just a few years after
Prohibition ended. Its formation represented a fundamental
cultural shift – one that recognized prohib