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any other recovering alcoholics ? how did you mention it in your apps ?
any other recovering alcoholics ? how did you mention it in your apps ?
- Thread starter FreeMeDoctor
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Unless this molded your personal development in such a manner that you can "spin" it into a good personal statement that illustrates your suitability for medical school, I would not include this. If being in recovery, for example, led to your serving as a counselor for X years and in the performance of that service, you have helped a large number of people which would demonstrate your counseling ability etc, then include this but otherwise, leave this out. It's a laudable achievement but you need to totally spell out how it molded you personally or how you put that experience to use.
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I'm not an alcoholic but it's my understanding that an alcoholic is "recovering" for the remainder of their life if they are not drinking. In other words, you're an alcoholic who is drinking or you are a recovering alcoholic.
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I wouldn't mention it, its really none of their business to begin with, plus there is still a stigma revolving around being an alcoholic-even many medical professionals don't fully understand or accept alcoholism as a disease.
However, you may be expected to explain gaps in employment or school history... ie. "Why did you take ___ number of years off?" In which answering may be difficult without breaking your personal anonymity...
Personally this is a hard subject to spin well, and for me would probably left unsaid.
However, you may be expected to explain gaps in employment or school history... ie. "Why did you take ___ number of years off?" In which answering may be difficult without breaking your personal anonymity...
Personally this is a hard subject to spin well, and for me would probably left unsaid.
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Honestly, anyone right out of, or a few years out of college who claims they suffered alcoholism is just going to sound like a joke. A lot of people in college drink at least 2-3 nights a week. And I highly doubt anyone can be an alcoholic before very end of HS/college, so you were an alcoholic for the past four years and are now recovering? No one's going to buy that. Alcoholism is a very serious disease - unless you legitimately had it and went through AA and all that, don't make light of it for a simple "look at my willpower" essay.
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While I don't know what the medical definitions are, I'm inclined to view a "recovering" alcoholic as someone who's getting better, but still relapsing and having occasional difficulties, and "recovered" someone who hasn't touched booze for years.
For those of you who are unaware of the terminology and specifics, here's a quick explanation.
Alcoholism is a disease. It is not as simple to quit as most people think, especially after several years. I know many alcoholics who are in their late twenties, and it is certainly not unheard of to be an alcoholic when you leave college. Granted, those who leave college as alcoholics are very unlikely to have a GPA consistent with med-school matriculants, but i suppose anything is possible.
The term "recovering alcoholic" is indeed reserved for someone who at one point in their life was an alcoholic. A family member of mine is an alcoholic, hasn't had anything to drink for over 5 years, and is still considered in recovery. Once you can admit to a dependency to alcohol (quite a feat in itself), you will always be an alcoholic. In recovery simply means not drinking. Relapsing occasionally is not a method of recovery, it is just another habit of drinking associated with alcoholism. Go to an AA meeting, people who have 30 years of sobriety still claim to be in recovery. It is a daily chore and burden for these people to not pick up a drink as a result of the disease and therefore they will always be recovering from the after effects of alcoholism.
As for putting it your AMCAS. Avoid it, unless as someone pointed out, you have done some amazing things as a direct result of your recovery. Admitting you're an alcoholic is impressive, but in this instance, it may be better to avoid talking about it.
Alcoholism is a disease. It is not as simple to quit as most people think, especially after several years. I know many alcoholics who are in their late twenties, and it is certainly not unheard of to be an alcoholic when you leave college. Granted, those who leave college as alcoholics are very unlikely to have a GPA consistent with med-school matriculants, but i suppose anything is possible.
The term "recovering alcoholic" is indeed reserved for someone who at one point in their life was an alcoholic. A family member of mine is an alcoholic, hasn't had anything to drink for over 5 years, and is still considered in recovery. Once you can admit to a dependency to alcohol (quite a feat in itself), you will always be an alcoholic. In recovery simply means not drinking. Relapsing occasionally is not a method of recovery, it is just another habit of drinking associated with alcoholism. Go to an AA meeting, people who have 30 years of sobriety still claim to be in recovery. It is a daily chore and burden for these people to not pick up a drink as a result of the disease and therefore they will always be recovering from the after effects of alcoholism.
As for putting it your AMCAS. Avoid it, unless as someone pointed out, you have done some amazing things as a direct result of your recovery. Admitting you're an alcoholic is impressive, but in this instance, it may be better to avoid talking about it.
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*feels relieved that she gave the same advice both times*
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This is spot-on. I actually just attended an AA meeting the other day as part of my psych rotation, and this is precisely the definition used. (Also note that this terminology is not just limited to AA, as psychiatrists specializing in Addiction also use the term "recovering alcoholic" in this way.)
The idea is that alcoholism patients cannot ever "just take 1 or 2 drinks," and this is why they are not considered to be fully recovered. Recovering alcoholics are advised to continue attending AA groups for life. As the leader of the AA group I attended said, "Alcoholism is a disease. The best we can hope to do is to take away the alcohol, but unfortunately for all of us, we can never take away the -ism. "
As to the OP's original question, I wouldn't mention it under any circumstance, even if you have been sober for 10 years and are now the national president of AA. The unfortunate truth is that substance abuse is way too frequent of a problem with physicians today, so I would expect that this is a hot-button issue that adcoms will be watching out for. Since alcoholism is a life-long disease and the patients are always at risk for relapse, you are giving them a very easy reason for them to screen you out for being "high-risk."
Additionally, the field of psychiatry (and especially addiction psychiatry) is often not afforded it's due respect, even by many physicians. So, you may be running the risk of adcom members viewing your drinking as "a sign of personal weakness" or "a flaw in your character" or in some other such negative light.
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Since the majority of people on this forum are becoming/ will become physicians, there are a few things to think about:
1) There is value in relapsing. It does not nullify whatever periods of sobriety the user had. Its important for alcoholics to examine their patterns and find out what drives them back to the point of taking that first drink, and where their weaknesses lie.
2) AA is based on the fact that you can RECOVER. It is an inaccurate belief that an alcoholic can not recover. Read the Big Book of Alcoholics, it explicitly states that by following a few simple steps, one can recover.
3) Staying sober is far from a burden. When alcoholics approach it in a way that works for them, its simple. Since you seem to know people in AA, and/or know about it, reinvestigate. Ask people who have been sober for a decent chunk of time. If they say its a burden, they most probably arent in a good spot.
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Are you crazy? This is a little tid-bit of information you need to keep to yourself. Would you mention that you are a recovering heroin addict? Of course not.
Jeez. Are you for real?
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Thanks for the AA lesson! Unfortunately the disease model for alcohol is evidently complete nonsense. A Disease! Wow! Is smoking a disease? How about chewing gum? Sure, you can stretch your definitions as much as you want, but in the end, AA seems to be an alternate for church, a huge magnet for people that have fundamental problems and voids in life (their drinking just being a symptom of those problems). Anyhow, good luck to everyone struggling with alcohol problems, and I would say NO, don't put it on your app. FYI, I'm a very very heavy drinker by any standard (I was dangerously drunk at least 5 days a weak the last three years of college) and graduated with a 3.96 gpa from a top 5 university. I just started my first year of med school and things are fine, although I drink less. I just think most people have more will power that could be used before they step into an AA meeting and get on their knees.
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please tell me you're only MS1.
edit: ah, so you say that. seriously though, saying that alcoholism is not a disease is pretty stupid. I quote from UpToDate:
"The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence and the American Society of Addiction Medicine define alcoholism as a primary chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations [36]. The disease is often progressive and fatal. It is characterized by impaired control over drinking, preoccupation with the drug alcohol, use of alcohol despite adverse consequences, and distortion of thinking, most notably denial. Each of these symptoms may be continuous or periodic."
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This guy got into med school?
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I certainly know that many people, including professional health experts, classify alcoholism as a disease, so no need to quote UpToDate. I just don't agree. The disease label attaches unnecessary stigma to the condition, making a person feel powerless to change or, worse, giving them an excuse to keep doing what they are doing. Is it not possible that people drink because of pressures in their lives rather than a "disease" in their brains? What physical evidence exists for this disease? It seems like alcohol is a bad habit, but it is something people choose to do. I think drinking to excess is a personal choice, and I find it difficult to call choosing to drink excessively on a regular basis "disease."
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Amen. I encounter many alcoholics who act as if they are completely powerless to stop drinking, almost as if they had cancer or some other disease. Yeah. Yeah. Addictive personalities. Addiction medicine. I get it. But there are also people who believe in fibromyalgia as well as some who don't so quoting the conventional wisdom is not necessarily irrefutable proof.
Withdrawal from alcohol, however, is serious business and much worse than the withdrawal from any other drug. Nobody ever dies quitting heroin cold-turkkey but the DTs, if untreated, have a 30 percent mortality.
Calling it a disease, by the way, removes the stigma.
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It's a disease, much in the same manner as any condition which produces self-injury is a disease (pica, Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, etc.). Considering that it frequently produces and continues despite other significant health issues (e.g., pancreatitis, hepatitis, hepatic encephalopathy, Korsakoff's, etc., etc.), I don't think it makes much sense to call it a simple choice. Additionally, having spent several years working with dual diagnosis patients, I'm a little concerned with cavalier and categorical statements fiating it as "personal choice." Like anything that alters neurochemistry, it can change cognitive processes, choice mechanisms, etc., etc., which undermine "will and volition".
That being said, yes, there are some people who use alchohol as a crutch, but there are also many more who are legitimate addicts. Classifying it as a disease does not require one to accept it, no longer attempt to produce change in patients, nor get mushy-touchy-feely, however, so it's mistaken to think that classifying it as a disease legitimizes or excuses it.
EDIT: And to the OP, don't mention it unless it is absolutely central to your desire to pursue medicine. Putting it in for the sake of having it there or to make yourself memorable produces awkward essays. If you're having a hard time finding a place for it in your essay, the most logical question to ask is whether it belongs in there in the first place.
That being said, yes, there are some people who use alchohol as a crutch, but there are also many more who are legitimate addicts. Classifying it as a disease does not require one to accept it, no longer attempt to produce change in patients, nor get mushy-touchy-feely, however, so it's mistaken to think that classifying it as a disease legitimizes or excuses it.
EDIT: And to the OP, don't mention it unless it is absolutely central to your desire to pursue medicine. Putting it in for the sake of having it there or to make yourself memorable produces awkward essays. If you're having a hard time finding a place for it in your essay, the most logical question to ask is whether it belongs in there in the first place.
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If nothing else, etngu's opinions should be enough to convince the OP that it is a terrible idea to include it in your application, since a lot of people share these views (even within the medical profession).
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The disease model of alcholism is contested, and there are many well-educated health professionals that disagree with it. Just because that's the mainstream perspective doesn't make it true.
For the record, alcholism runs through both sides of my family. My brother is becoming an alcoholic, my father is, and both grandfathers are. My sister drinks her fair share. I do not drink at all. I guess I got lucky and didn't get the genes?
Medicine views alcoholism, as quoted, as primarily a disease process that is influenced by other factors, namely environmental, that are stated to more or less modulate the underlying biological pathology. This is horribly reductionistic and misses the point that social processes are central to the "etiology" (to invoke medical terminology) of the so-called disease.
Anyway, it really depends upon your definition of disease and to what extent behavior becomes medicalized. Only recently did alcoholism become a disease, and this was through powerful publicity campaigns by powerful groups (most notably AA). The same is done for "diseases" like depression, which by the way have the force of research suggesting its genesis in social environment, not in biology (though as in all behavior, biology is inextricably involved). Now it's true that all diseases have their genesis to some degree in social environment, as well, which brings me to my next point.
The notion of disease as it applies to alcoholism is heavily categorical and therefore involves not only a great number of philosophical assumptions and quite importantly moral contentions but a depth of research that simply isn't there. I wish I had time to make a robust argument, but I do not. I simply wanted to point out a few of these issues.
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I'll challenge that idea of depression being due principally to social environment; there are a number of studies that support endogenous models of depression. While there is certainly a diathesis-stress model for the illness, all of the research I've seen suggests that it's not always (or even mostly) due to social stressors.
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there are also twin studies supporting your argument
Twin studies don't say anything except that individuals with identical genetic material tend to both become depressed. Just because something has a genetic component doesn't mean it's a uniform disease category. If depression is a disorder of social maladaptation, then we'd especially expect twins to both become depressed.
Depression according to an endogenous model is absolutely nonsensical, since fecundity is reduced in those chronically depressed. Evolutionary theory, the great unifier of biology, contradicts heartily this thinking. If something does not make sense in the context of evolution, it cannot be true.
And most of the (good) research I've read does suggest a social etiology. Just because the endocrine system becomes depressed, stress hormones increase, and you see metabolic changes in the brain does not mean the "causes" of depression themselves are in the body. It's obvious that these physiological states represent the physical correlates to the mental states, but it doesn't mean that they came about ex nihilo. And if they did, then an underlying physiological pathology from which these physiological states arise would have to be established to establish the scientific validity of a disease state, and it has NOT been. You cannot make any mistake here: this fundamentally undermines the scientific validity of the theory that depression is a disease state. The disease theory, then, is nothing more than a "hypothesis" that is vigorously defended in the era of misrepresented neuroscience.
As you should well know, the hypothalamus is heavily innervated by areas of the brain crucially involved in pleasure and social cognition. I wonder why?
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I can't write a long post at the moment (rough drafts to grade and other research for an ethics article to do), but there are a few things.
(1) Twin studies have also demonstrated higher rates of depression when raised apart (i.e., separate and different social environments), which undermines arguments that we would expect them both to develop depression. Depression occurring without the same psychosocial stressors suggests non-sociological causation.
(2) The evolutionary objection is theoretical; it does not address the data generated. While I agree that everything in biology makes sense in light of the evolutionary paradigm, you are mischaracterizing the endogenous model with a superficial treatment. Further, some researchers are now exploring whether depression may be adaptive (in line with the evolutionary model).
(3) Other structures aside from the hypothalamus have been and are being investigated in light of depressive symptomology (e.g., the hippocampus); while there is a legitimate chicken-or-egg question about this, there are many more structures at work.
(4) The objection raised does not address treatment refractory depressions, the treatment mechanism for ECT, psychopharmacological management, psychopharmacological induction of depression, depression secondary to other medical conditions with known neurohormonal effects, etc., etc.
I'm happy to address each of these, as I covered them in great depth in chapter three of my doctoral dissertation, so I'm more than happy to provide the sources (and if anyone is curious, I can PM you a link to the dissertation itself).
(1) Twin studies have also demonstrated higher rates of depression when raised apart (i.e., separate and different social environments), which undermines arguments that we would expect them both to develop depression. Depression occurring without the same psychosocial stressors suggests non-sociological causation.
(2) The evolutionary objection is theoretical; it does not address the data generated. While I agree that everything in biology makes sense in light of the evolutionary paradigm, you are mischaracterizing the endogenous model with a superficial treatment. Further, some researchers are now exploring whether depression may be adaptive (in line with the evolutionary model).
(3) Other structures aside from the hypothalamus have been and are being investigated in light of depressive symptomology (e.g., the hippocampus); while there is a legitimate chicken-or-egg question about this, there are many more structures at work.
(4) The objection raised does not address treatment refractory depressions, the treatment mechanism for ECT, psychopharmacological management, psychopharmacological induction of depression, depression secondary to other medical conditions with known neurohormonal effects, etc., etc.
I'm happy to address each of these, as I covered them in great depth in chapter three of my doctoral dissertation, so I'm more than happy to provide the sources (and if anyone is curious, I can PM you a link to the dissertation itself).
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I wonder if any of your students are on SDN.
If I found out that my prof was on SDN, my life would never be the same. 
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I wonder if any of your students are on SDN.
I've pointed a few towards it, but I can only show them the door. They must choose whether to walk through it...
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1. Twin studies actually suggest genetic load and social causation. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but there is a massive drop in incidence of depression with twins raised apart as compared to those raised together. Moreover, according to a model of social origins, concordance can also be explained by cultural and societal commonalities, even between different environments. Moreover, even these aren't necessary--some individuals will be prone to depression regardless of social environment by virtue of their inherent shortcomings which will be difficult to reconcile anywhere. This doesn't at all argue for some sort of "inherent pathophysiology," or "depression genes." It is exactly at this particularly juncture that neuroscience and psychiatric epidemiology will continue to fail in its search. Depression is a universal capacity that all human beings have but only some manifest depending upon how well they have adapted socially.
2. See #1 for a working evolutionary model.
3. I'm not sure of the relevance here. I was simply making the point that "HPA/HPG axis disfunction" (one of the basic [and incomplete] working models of endogenous depression) can be, and probably is, induced by activity in other parts of the brain that modulate sociality. In fact, these axes have an enormous role in the modulation of social behavior themselves (think cortisol, testosterone, estrogen, etc.). It would seem terribly odd if these regions of the brain that hormonally modulate sociality weren't themselves under the control of social stimuli.
4. It's not disputed whether physiological changes occur in the body during depression, or that these can be countered pharmacologically (not that clinical track records for antidepressants are even consistent in showing their efficacy). These physiological changes are essential to producing the depression. You simply aren't addressing the issue of how these physiological processes come about, and until that is addressed, the disease theory cannot be considered a legitimately supported scientific theory.
Another example. It's also possible to destroy hearing in an individual using toxic antibiotics, but that doesn't mean that hearing sounds is an endogenous process.
Anyway, I'm interested in reading that chapter of your dissertation if you would send it this way. I am only wishing to engage in constructive debate.
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PM sent; I've run out of time tonight to discuss this further.
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You have noooooo idea. I'm in my mid-20's and my story is worse than some people in A.A. who drank for 30 years. Age and time have nothing to do with it.
OP, you really aren't going to get the answers you want by asking a bunch of pre-meds about this. A lot of them have pretty strong opinions about this without any knowledge. I would recommend talking to people about it who either have experience with it (AA's in med school or beyond) or who know what they're talking about (adcoms). Most pre-meds will reply with "you will not get in if you mention it" or "there are plenty of people who don't have these problems, why should they take someone who does?" These people would probably be pretty surprised how many of their doctors (and possibly future interviewers) are A.A. members.
Anyway, I'm pretty far from applying, but this is something I've thought about a lot. Most of the A.A. doctor folks who I've talked to said go ahead and mention it. Apparently it's really not considered that big of a deal, at least where I'm from. But then again, I have a cluster of W's that will probably need an explanation. I might not mention it if it weren't for that.
That being said, I am a pre-med and my opinion is worthless! Go out into the real word and talk to people who have related knowledge or experience. I'm sure you'll be fine either way. Good luck.
Btw I'm not posting on SDN on a Friday night for fun.... I'm at work haha.
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Er.... Thursday night, rather. I finished finals today..... my brain is on strike.
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Your "inclination" is born of ignorance. I would move to another thread, if I were you.
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It's Thursday....
I agree, but this thread was from 2007, so the OP would be an M2 now...
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Haha... wow, I failed. Like I said.... finals week.
I'm not sure if this topic is still open, but I can tell you from my experiences (got into several medical schools last year), it can go either way with an application. I mentioned my recovery from addiction because I had a record (and horrible grades from my first year of college) and because it has played a large part in my service work, as well as my clinical work and research. When I needed to disclose it in my secondaries, I tried not to dwell on my circumstances but, rather, what I had done with my experiences in a clinical/service/research setting. Feel free to PM me if you still have questions.
