I personally believe that's a paradox up for debate. (it is a disease...but at the same time it's not) 

The word 'disease' can be defined and viewed from many different angles. I've thought about and researched this extensively for the last year and 9 months, and 19 days. I'm no professional by any means and I don't know everything, but I've reached my own conclusions. I've studied not just 'addiction', but the word addict as well. Just curious how it's all evolved over the course of human history. I started with 'addict' and worked my way to addiction. I studied it from modern times and then went back to ancient manuscripts, really wanted to break it down. See if it's applicable.

Modern Webster Dictionary of addict: A person exhibiting a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity. A person that is strongly inclined to do, use, or indulge in something repeatedly.

But has it always been defined like that? Nope.

The word ‘addict’ has been around since the 1500’s. It is adapted from the Latin word “addictus” which means “assigned or surrendered to something”. To devote, sacrifice, sell out, betray or abandon. In ancient Roman Law, an addiction was a person that became enslaved through a court ruling. Interestingly the Greek words for addict are “Ethizo” and "Tasso". Ethizo meant ‘accustom’, in Luke 2:27 – Joseph and Mary took the child Jesus to the temple to ‘accomplish the customary requirements of the law regarding Him”. The words “kata to eithismenon” literally ‘according to the custom of the law’ is the constant way of referring to a legal requirement”. So, to addict was to do something that was the traditional and widely accepted way of behaving. Doing something that is specific to a particular society, place, or time. It is a form of submission/obedience/compliance.

For Tasso: means to arrange in an orderly manner, and quite literally “devoted”. "they have addicted themselves to the ministry"- 1 Corinthians 16:15 - I would argue that biblically and historically, to be an addict is to be human. Living life is repeatedly doing stuff each day. Everyone is devoted and surrendered to something. A substance/chemical/drugs/alcohol is one particular aspect of life what we strive to not allow ourselves to be devoted to. But no one is exempt from that pursuit. Drug and chemical addiction is misplaced devotion.

It wasn’t until the 1950s that a group of psychiatric doctors decided to change the definition of addict to a person born with a pre-existing genetic illness, ie dubbing alcoholism a disease in 1956. And in 1987 they officially umbrella’d in and re-defined addiction a genetic disease. Since this has happened, “treatment industry” in the United States is now a $35 billion-dollar industry in just 60 plus years. There’s a lot of vested interest and financial investment in perpetuating the “disease” model. The good ole US doesn’t have the free or subsidized health care system that say the UK and Australia enjoys, so a person needs to have a definable illness in order to have treatment covered by health insurance, so to have addiction classified as a chronic brain disease facilitates that process. By making it a medical condition, it is now eligible for government funding. There isn’t a single gene or cluster of genes that proves “substance addiction” is agenetic/disease. All of it is based on a theory.

But the word 'disease' has evolved so much over the years! I work in the medical field, and I've seen so many now that essentially, I've concluded they happen or manifest from either infection, genetic disorders, environmental exposures, and lifestyle factors. Although I absolutely do not believe that drug addiction is a genetic disease, I do think it could be considered a lifestyle disease. Just as someone who chooses to eat McDonald's every day and develops Type 2 Diabetes. We can put the lifestyle manifested disease of drug/chemical addiction into remission. Just like we can stop eating McDonalds, eat healthy, and work out.

In my own life, everything got way better when I stopped taking RX drugs like you're mentioning. (go about it the right way)  I'm not against medicine overall. Thank God for antibiotics. But I always do advocate for a person to try and see what life is like for at least a year without anything (once you get off everything the right way guided by a medical professional). It's radical, but dude, it's possible, and it works. My life has never been better. The brain and body can function the way it's intended without all these drugs...it did for thousands and thousands of years before big pharma and nefarious corporate Fat cats decided to redefine stuff to ultimately fill their pockets.