Agreed in that few people treat it with the seriousness it deserves. In fact it's almost a joke for many people - "haha, I'm such an alcoholic" etc. I'm sure if they'd ever seen the real effects of alcoholism they'd think twice about throwing terms like that around.

I drink a decent amount of beer and wine so I'm pretty far from tee-total, but misusing the term "alcoholism" bugs me a great deal.