For some reason we, as a society, have decided certain health problems are moral failures to be treated with shame and cured through willpower alone rather than modern medical intervention.
A rather poorly targeted and counterproductive one.
Note that you immediately assumed a puritan view, that addiction is solely an individual moral failing.
> there are temptations to addiction all around us
If I had to choose one word to describe the current era's discourse, it might be "over-correction."
I do think shame as a tool is a crude one, and people can and should try do better. The trouble is shame is easy and doing better is hard. Many of us literally don't have the tools to do better. It requires higher choices, understanding interpersonal dynamics well enough to behave in un-intuitive ways, and personal sacrifice in order to coexist and connect with people who are suffering. If the average person had these abilities I don't think we'd need to have this conversation.
I don't think shame should be encouraged, but I doubt it makes sense to actively discourage it without an alternative that makes sense to people and is readily practiced. That's a hard problem.
With my kids I encourage them to think of what the other person is experiencing, think about why they'd invoke shameful words about someone or something, and generally try to reframe what they're thinking about. That alone can be helpful in thinking more constructively rather than destructively. Usually shaming something occurs out of discomfort, fear, and/or insecurity. Once you begin to recognize that addiction like alcoholism often stems from bad experiences, a lack of connection, a lack of community, etc - you begin to think of the person as someone burdened with more than most humans can handle, and recognize the necessity for support rather than your own desire to reject them or their habits.
Again, not a trivial thing, but one I believe is typically going to be more helpful than reaching for shame.
Maybe I'm wrong but at least shame indicates that people care. No reaction or concern whatsoever would probably be the worst reaction of all.
this is incidentally why 'cancel culture' doesn't work either. you have to do the hard work of active engagement[0], and that requires empathy, not (mis)judgement. shame has a small, limited place in our prosocial toolbox, but backfires reliably when mis- or over-used (and it's too often misused to enforce arbitrary conformity).
[0]: intentionally avoiding the term "listening", because that tends to be shallowly dismissed, with everyone thinking they listen well simply because their ears work
That doesn't mean that shame is an acceptable nor an effective form of addiction treatment.
As you said temptation to addiction is all around us, and alcohol is only one…well shame is just another one of those tempting addictions and it happens to be the addiction de jour.
And that’s to say nothing of the other ridiculous ways shame is wielded: when a man wants to be a stay-at-home dad, when a person doesn’t want to become a parent, when someone emigrates to another country, when someone is in a relationship with a person of another race. All of these people have been “shamed” yet none of these behaviors have abated.
What would you think of a manager who uses shame to “motivate” their employees? Or a teacher who uses shame to "motivate" students? You’d probably think they’re awful at their job. We know that putting people down is a terrible an ineffective way to motivate them to move forward.
So why do we still think it magically works when it comes to addiction? It doesn’t.
This idea that addiction is something that only happens to people who "just can't deal with life" needs to die.
A lot of other conditions also benefit from a more holistic approach, things like obesity, heart problems etc are easy to prevent, hard to cure.
It’s a lovely sentiment for those of us who don’t suffer from it because it makes us feel like we are immune from the problem. It could never happen to us because we have the mental fortitude to overcome it. It’s a nice thought but it’s nonsense.
Or are you saying alcoholics lack free will?
Then I suppose drug addicts should be immune from prosecution if they commit crimes to get drugs?
My brother struggles with alcoholism and has been on and off the horse, with AA as the main thing all the time. The primary impact it seems to have on him is that all he wants to talk about is AA and alcoholism. It becomes his identity. "Alcoholics do this, alcoholics do that, alcoholics are like this". If I thought that was helpful then fine, but it seems more rewarding identities would be possible and less limiting.
One of the things we've learned is that success with behavior changes happen when you normalize them. If someone is a "survivor of X" as their identity, X is still kind of controlling them. They are still defined in relation to that X. They are "James the rape survivor" and not "James the talented craftsman".
Relapse is just around the corner, and most people don't know what will bring it on. It has happened to men and women stronger than you or me. Saying "I'm in recovery" is a way to remind yourself of that, and learn to be OK with taking things a day at a time. If a relapse happens, it's not the end. You're still taking it a day at a time, and tomorrow you'll make a plan to call your accountability partner, or structure your day to avoid those triggers.
Telling yourself "I'm recovered" makes the relapse much more damaging.
I listen to old Lovelines from time to time and I thought it was weird when a caller asked Dr. Drew why he only suggests AA for alcohol addiction and never anything else. Dr. Drew, and even Adam Carolla, both got oddly defensive and started attacking the caller, as if even bringing up the question as to if alternatives exist was to question their authority to even speak on the matter. It just gave me a bad taste in my mouth for them to treat this twelve-step program as unquestionably the only way to deal with addiction.
But between that and the fact that AA is often court mandated, like you say, it makes me wonder why AA is put on this pedestal and people aren't given more treatment options.