You may have realized that I have almost no knowledge of alcoholism as you aptly pointed out. But
here is a site which may be of some use to us.
As it is pointed out, doesn't your continual insistence that alcoholism is a medical condition and is genetic (I agree), provide the alcoholics with the perfect excuse to keep on drinking? Personally, if my family would have been populated with alcoholics and I knew that it was genetic, a medical condition, nay a chronic ailment, and I was bound to become an alcoholic whether I want to or not, sooner or later- would there be much
for the cause of me not taking to drinking?
It is good to take the scientific aspects into the picture, but we must not forget the human aspect. We also have a choice to correct ourselves. Just because the soldiers that you mentioned were brave enough to give their blood for their country does not automatically qualify them to be eligible to fight against themselves. And anyway, I don't think they knew the ill effects of drinking or smoking then to make an attempt to stop themselves. Similarly, my grandfather has never been asked to take part in a war, but he was courageous enough to stop himself from his life-long addiction. He got to know about the ill effects of smoking and tried to stop himself. Human beings, when taken as a whole, become predictable as the Sun that rises in the East every morning. But, in the individual level, it is a totally different matter.
I hope I made some sense, because I am a little bit, how should I put it, dazed after talking so much.