Charlotte Rescue Mission accepts the American Medical Association’s definition of alcoholism as:

“… an illness that is characterized by significant impairment in the emotional, psychological, spiritual, physical and social areas that is directly associated with the persistent and excessive use of alcohol. Impairment may involve psychological or social dysfunction. Alcoholism also is manifested as a type of drug dependence of pathological extant and pattern, which ordinarily interferes seriously with the patient’s mental and physical health and his adaptation to his environment”

Concerning the spiritual implications of alcoholism, we believe that alcoholism takes root in alienation from God and the violation of conscience. We believe that God’s power can deliver individuals from the compulsion to drink, and set them free from the emotional, psychological, spiritual, physical, and social consequences of an alcoholic lifestyle.