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This is the same vibe as people telling me I don't need ADD/anxiety meds, I just need to toughen up and try harder.

If moderation and self-discipline work for you, that's great. They demonstrably aren't working for millions of people. If medicine can help fix this, there's no reason it shouldn't.

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Psychological issues [...] may undermine those

I explicitly mentioned that and am very aware of it as an issue; I am criticising the idea of surgical approaches being "medical breakthroughs", not psychiatric/psychological treatments, including medicine. I should have distinguished that in my comment for clarity.

If a surgery were developed that reversed the effects of alcoholism and dramatically reduced a person's desire to consume alcohol, wouldn't we still consider that a medical breakthrough?

I think so, but I suspect it would be neuro or related surgery and, regardless, we need to distinguish between severe "last resort" cases in extreme contexts (which obviously exist in alcohol, eating and other disorders), and more generally aimed surgical "quick fixes" as in the article that are a) not needed and b) detrimental to the individual and society as they undermine those long term solutions, disciple and moderation as discussed.

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