All the a's

I thought this was an interesting article, in some respects, on alcoholism and addiction, and whether they fit into the straitjacket of the disease model.

Some years ago I went through a phase in which, for a while, my drinking could be described as problematic. Yet it wasn't drinking that was the problem in itself, it was merely (yes feel free to raise an eyebrow at the use of the word merely) a rather poor and unhealthy coping mechanism.

The article describes things very much from a US perspective, and in terms of someone who is very much in the news at the moment, nonetheless there are plenty of worthwhile general points regardless of the specific context of the article.