From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishchronic alcoholic/gambler etcchronic alcoholic/gambler etcLONG TIMEsomeone who has behaved in a particular way for a long time and cannot stop He was a chronic alcoholic and unable to hold down a job. a chronic smoker → chronic
Examples from the Corpus
chronic alcoholic/gambler etc• The sleep patterns of chronic alcoholics are usually quite abnormal.• Even after chronic alcoholics give up booze, their sleep problems may not end.• All the results found in studies on non-alcoholic subjects may not hold true for chronic alcoholic patients.• Clearly a study needs to be done with chronic alcoholic patients.• There are no studies on the acute effect of alcohol intake on gastric acid secretion in chronic alcoholic patients. 