Actually you can argue all day as to whether alcoholism is a disease.
What matters is that it tends to do well from specific treatment, often starting with an intervention to get people to put their first foot over the line.
Can people take the first step themselves? Some can. I believe some strong-minded individuals here could. But not everybody.
FWIW, Mike Beane is a gentleman. I was for with him for about a week in 2012. He was sober the whole time and was an absolute winner to have around- so much so that salespeople asked for his involvement again the next year. I'm hoping that somebody has a lever to get him into rehab and onto the path to redemption, because he is worth it.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
