Note: If you are an addict, especially a Republican addict, make sure your addiction is to alcohol.

Henry "Trey" Radel is the Republican congressman who was caught buying 3.5 grams of cocaine from an undercover officer on 29 October in Washington DC.

On Wednesday he released the following statement:

I'm profoundly sorry to let down my family, particularly my wife and son, and the people of southwest Florida. I struggle with the disease of alcoholism, and this led to an extremely irresponsible choice.

Rob Ford, the lampooned mayor of Toronto, when asked if he smoked crack, said the following:

Have I tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago.

It is amazing how quickly politicians retreat to the relative safety of being an alcoholic, you know, the socially acceptable drug. If you drink, you are normal. If you drink too much, you have a disease.

Henry Radel, along with almost all of his Republican colleagues, voted this October for an amendment that would give states the right to drug test food stamp applicants. This follows a recent rash of laws proposed and passed by Republicans in state legislatures that require testing for illegal drugs for public assistance applicants or recipients. One such law was passed in Henry Radel's own state of Florida, but a US appeals court halted its enforcement.

The proposed legislation and laws vary state to state, but the implication and consequences of all of them are the same: those who use illegal drugs are not worth spending money on. If you smoke crack, shoot heroin, snort coke, you are just weak, lazy, and immoral. You don't have a disease.

This is why the way we talk about addiction matters. Having a disease humanizes. It allows the afflicted to be a victim who is worth treating.

American society considers alcoholics people with a disease, deserving of our help. That's why Rob Ford and Henry Radel tried to quickly rebrand their recent problems. It lets them justify keeping their jobs, with wages that are paid with the public tax dollars (Radel has now taken a "leave of absence").

Addiction is a disease, whether the drug is legal or illegal. A heroin addict should be no less deserving of our sympathy, our understanding, and our public assistance, than that afforded to an alcoholic.

If anything, the Republicans have it backwards. Those most in need of our help are those furthest down the spectrum of addiction, those who have a disease that has progressed to the point of taking over their entire body and life.

Those are the addicts I see daily, the ones living under bridges, the ones living in makeshift tents. Their bodies need a $100 worth of heroin a day to keep from going into revolt.

Those addicts sell their bodies, abuse their friends, and will do anything for drugs. Their disease has progressed to the point where the only thing keeping them alive, giving them hope, is the help of others.

Those are the ones Henry Radel and other Republicans want to deny help to.

Henry Radel pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of possession and was sentenced to a year's probation. Had it been his home state of Florida he would have faced felony charges punishable by up to five years in prison.

His last statement, before escaping into "treatment and therapy" was:

I know I have a problem and will do whatever is necessary to overcome it, hopefully setting an example for others struggling with this disease.

"This disease", singular. I hope he means the disease of addiction. Addiction to cocaine, addiction to heroin, crack, weed, pills, or whatever the drug; not just addiction to alcohol.

If that is what he means, then I hope he puts in calls to his Republican colleagues, explaining why voting to deny public assistance to addicts is offensive and spreads that disease.

I doubt he will.