Drink too much? It's a disease. The child of an alcoholic? You have a disease. Overeat or gamble? Both diseases. Sex-obsessed? Definitely a disease. Workaholics, compulsive shoppers, fitness freaks, drug users, whatever the behavior: The growing trend is to call it a disease.

And if somehow you've missed out on actually having one of these illnesses, the chances are that you live with someone, or have lived with someone, who has had one of these behavior diseases. That makes you a codependent. And codependency is described as a disease that stems from an addiction to another person's addiction-a disease arising from disease.

"I'm not arguing against the use of the word `disease' for some people," she says, "but we have extended its use so much. Like with children of alcoholics-now they are diseased. My belief is that too many people are using the word `disease' as a coat hanger to hang all their problems on. I'm not taking lightly the problems of growing up in an alcoholic home, but I think we miss a lot if we only take the disease approach." Forced into `illness'