How does one avoid conflating the spiritual malady and alcoholism?
The way not to conflate it with alcoholism is simply not to conflate it with alcoholism.
I have alcoholism AND I have a spiritual malady. Two separate questions.
The spiritual malady is to some extent universal. No one is entirely free of it; no one is entirely encumbered with it.
Note that:
- The bedevilments on page 52 are described as human problems
- Self-will run riot on pages 60 to 62 is described as a human phenomenon, not an alcoholic phenomenon, and the alcoholic is the last of the list of examples
- Pages 66 to 67: the world and its people (i.e. not just alcoholics) were often quite wrong; they (the world and its people), like ourselves, were spiritually sick
How does this relate to alcoholism?
Defence from a Higher Power is required to deflect or defuse the mental obsession to have the first drink.
What stands in the way of that is the spiritual malady.
That is why the spiritual malady must be overcome to overcome alcoholism: it is the block to the solution.
If you have appendicitis, you need to go to the hospital. If you have no petrol in the engine, you can't get there.
Sure, you need to fill up your car with petrol (= overcome the spiritual malady = filling up the spiritual emptiness), but no one would construe an empty petrol tank as a feature of appendicitis.