I don't hold with the disease model of it, either. People who do drugs and drink alcoholically should be sterilized and then shot. Who do they think they are? Wasting everybody's time and patience, begging for forgiveness and, most notably, loathing themselves right into early graves and suicidal behaviors. Who needs it!
That said--HOW does one KNOW one is an alcoholic until the first drink is down the gullet? And most alcoholics don't suffer consequences right away--mostly, it's a good, positive, self-reinforcing experiment. In this day and age, in this country, it would be the minority who was not exposed to a cocktail, beer or whatever. The drugs and alcohol are GOOD until they are BAD. By that time, chemical messengers and even brain functions are warped. Addiction is understood by those who have it and will never be by those who don't. It looks like insanity from a non-addicts viewpoint. I just deleted a bunch of stuff I wrote about similar diseases. It doesn't matter. You either understand or you don't.