<p>“THEY ARE NOT BAD PEOPLE. They are sick people. Most domestic violence and crime involves alcohol or drug use.”</p>
<p>No, if you repeatedly beat your wife in front of your kids, you are a bad person. There are millions of addicts who don’t commit that kind of evil act. If these abusers are not bad people, then IMHO there is no such thing as a bad person.</p>
<p>I would make an exception for psychotic people who truly don’t know what they are doing. If the reality you perceive is that your wife is an alien and invading your thoughts, you aren’t culpable for your actions. But addiction is a different story. Addiction to a drug causes use of the drug; it does not, itself, cause violence.</p>
<p>Addiction is a psychiatric diagnosis, just like depression or anorexia. I have not heard “brain disease” used as a term of art among psychiatrists as distinguished from “mental illness.” Schizophrenia is both a brain disease and a mental illness.</p>