Normies love to pontificate about the causes of and solutions to addiction, but I never get more than a paragraph in before I find a vacuous statement that highlights how completely the speaker misses the point. It's fucking exhausting.
and what is one of the results of that "moment of clarity? They stop drinking.
That's the whole idea of being addicted. It is a dependency at a physical level outside of any of your abilities to reason. Only very strong people make it out and almost always with assistance from the outside.
Neither can addicts the vast majority of addicts, that's the point.
I would say most addicts don't want to be addicts at some point, yet they are still addicts.
I'm addicted to nicotine since I was 12 and I don't want to be, yet I am. I've quit a few times for a few months, but always get triggered back into starting up again.
“Peer reviewed studies peg the success rate of AA somewhere between five and 10 percent,” writes Dodes. “About one of every 15 people who enter these programs is able to become and stay sober.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/the-surpr...
Now do you see how it's like a disease? Users literally realize they need to stop or they will die, but they do not.
Non-substance addict in recovery here. You CANNOT (by definition) “decide” to stop having an addiction. I’m not gonna get into a huge discussion but would like to point out the (ongoing) work looking at the various genetic markers that increase vulnerability or statistical predisposition to various substance and non-substance addictions.
http://neurowiki2013.wikidot.com/individual:genetics-of-addi...
You can't just choose to stop having an addiction, either.
That's kind of the whole point of addiction.
> alcoholics and other addicts will often have a so called "moment of clarity".
A moment of clarity is just the point at which one recognizes a problem.
> No such "moment of clarity" exist for other diseases.
This is not at all true.
If you believe, that decision itself can stop substance abuse, than think about what is the more probable outcome of such a decision: freedom of addiction or failed attempt to stop. I have no statistics, but looking at other nicotine addicts I would say that decision means almost nothing. Maybe in 1 from 20 cases decision to stop leads to remission. One can argue that in 19 cases there was wrong decision, but it is more likely that there are some other causes, and decision is not cause of remission, though essential accompanying factor.
Addiction is something you cannot comprehend by just abstractly thinking about it. You need explore it either by trying, or (preferrable) by studying addicts or at least reading articles wrote by scientists who are studying addiction.
Plenty of other illnesses trace back to life choices. Unprotected sex gets you STDs. Not exercising and eating right leads to heart failure. Isolating yourself socially leads to depression. Many of these can also be stopped or reversed after a "moment of clarity" that causes you to change how you live your life. Addiction is not particularly special in this regard.