As someone who has been to rehab a couple of times myself and had several stints in the rooms, my take on the disease or not a disease concept is scrap both of those binaries. The problem affects all of society so society must stop the binary assignment-of-blame-approach and simply accept that the problem affects millions of people touching the lives of all and costs society hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Substance abusers have the ultimate accountability for their actions and a duty to do what they can to recover. Society needs to do its part to understand addiction, remove the stigma, and make proper care affordable not only for addiction but for mental health generally. 12-step programs and rehabs are salves between relapses. A new paradigm is required. Until we destigmatize substance abuse, the cycle of failure will never end. https://medium.com/illumination/drilling-down-to-the-root-cause-of-addiction-7c57c5a3fd6c