Is addiction a disease? Most people think so. The idea has become entrenched in our news media, our treatment facilities, our courts, and in the hearts and minds of addicts themselves. It’s a potent concept: If you’re an alcoholic or a drug addict, then you’re ill. And you’re going to remain ill. According to Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disease,” and that definition has been adopted by medical researchers and policy makers everywhere. Recently, the supremacy of the disease model was highlighted by an article in The New England Journal of Medicine.