The Proof

William Mayer, M.D., former chief of the U.S. Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration, speaks of alcoholism as "a disease...genetically determined...clearly progressive. We can predict its course even though the speed of its course may vary from person to person. It is ultimately fatal. It leads to a predictable physical deterioration and often some mental impairment, and it occurs in people who have no discernable previous psychological or emotional disorders"

In 1984 the question of whether alcoholism is a physical or mental disorder was the subject of a major courtroom battle. The case pitted the federal government against Granville House, an alcoholism treatment center in Minneapolis that treats many uninsured clients who receive government disability funding. The government's position was that since alcoholism was classified officially as a mental disorder, Medicare could rightly refuse to reimburse Granville House for the treatment it provided.

The government's star witness was a psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Spitzer, who defended the view of alcoholism as a psychological disorder even though he recognized that "there exists no effective psychiatric treatment."

Two former presidents of the American Society of Addiction Medicine---LeClaire Bissel, M.D., and Maxwell Weisman, M.D.--testified in support of the concept of alcoholism as a physiological disease. In summing up their testimony, federal judge Miles Lord noted that they had described "the utter failure of treatment modalities based on defining, diagnosing and treating alcoholism as a mental disease."

In his descision, Judge Lord noted that the American Medical Association had classified alcoholism as a physical disease in 1957. Here is an excerpt from his opinion.

Alcoholism is the third leading cause of death in the United States. This Court is unaware of any mental illness that so directly and persistently results in death...Disease of the body, if severe and continuing, will in time effect the mind...The sole fact that a condition is accompanied by abnormal behavior does not justify its classification as mental. The great bulk of the testimony supports the conclusion that alcoholism is a diagnosis of a primary disease. It cannot be understood as a secondary effect of any other problems. The disease is predominantly physical as opposed to mental in nature...It is therefore the Court's conclusion that the Federal Government's classification of alcoholism and other forms of chemical dependency as mental disorders is arbitrary and capricious.

The Actual case file: 

https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/static/dab/decisions/board-decisions/1984/dab529.html

Miles Welton Lord, was a larger-than-life public figure who spent his life courageously fighting for the rights of "the little guy." He was born on November 6, 1919, one of nine children in a poor Iron Range family in Crosby-Ironton. As a school boy, Miles, a skinny 5 feet 9, began to make his mark as a fighter who took on town bullies. He went on to box in Golden Gloves tournaments and, in 1939, as a middleweight, advanced to the state championship, losing in the final round but winning loud applause for his grit in battling back after being knocked down at least six times. Miles himself would remain as proud of his mettle in the ring as anything else and throughout his life would use that same mindset to fight for justice for all. In 1940, Miles eloped with the love of his life, Maxine, also from Crosby-Ironton. Shortly thereafter, the young couple left for the Twin Cities, where Miles attended the University of Minnesota and received his law degree in 1948. Miles then began his many years of public service in the early 1950s as an assistant U.S. Attorney and crime-busting prosecutor of Twin Cities gangsters and racketeers. In 1954, Miles was elected Minnesota Attorney General, a post he would serve in until 1960 while becoming one of the best known and most popular politicians in the state. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Miles as U.S. Attorney for Minnesota; in that post, he teamed up with U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in the successful prosecution of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Miles as a federal district court judge; his lifelong friend, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, proudly proclaimed that Miles would be "the people's judge." Indeed, in his two decades on the bench, Judge Lord gained national fame with his bold (and sometimes controversial) rulings holding big corporations account-able for their wrongdoing; protecting the environment; defending the rights of women; standing up for consumers; and precedent-setting decisions on issues ranging from disability rights to education reform to nuclear disarmament. Perhaps his two most famous cases involved the Reserve Mining Company, which was dumping thousands of tons of taconite waste containing asbestos-like fibers into Lake Superior, and the A.H. Robins Company, which manufactured the Dalkon Shield, an IUD that injured thousands of women. In the Reserve Mining case, Judge Lord became the first judge in the country to order a major industrial plant to halt its operations in order to protect the environment. In the Dalkon Shield litigation, Judge Lord's actions helped lead to the recall of Dalkon Shield and the bankruptcy of the A.H. Robins Company. In 1985, the judge stepped down from the bench and entered the private practice of law, where he was joined, for periods of time, by all four of his children.