Uncle Fred tells you that he has recently been diagnosed with cancer. All family members let out sympathetic gasps of concern and huddle around Uncle Fred. They want to know his treatment options, his prognosis, and every detail related to the significance of his diagnosis. The rest of the holiday season is inundated with prayers on behalf of Uncle Fred, "Get Well" cards for Uncle Fred in fact, you consider buying stock in Hallmark as a result of the notes flooding Uncle Fred's mailbox, post-diagnosis announcement. Addiction, just like cancer, is a fatal disease. However, addiction stigma prevents many to understand the similarities.
Unfortunately, with mental illness, garnering the support of others can be taxing and difficult. Many people do not understand mental illness to the degree that they understand and relate to illnesses based in physiological malfunctions. Mental illness does not come in a package seared with scars, a cast on a leg, or intravenous feeding tubes protruding from the victim's wrists. Individuals suffering from mental disorders often hide the diagnosis from everyone including friends, family members and especially employers. During emotionally taxing times, in the midst of mismanagement of a mental illness or lack of treatment altogether afflicted patients need personal time away from the office. In some cases, the need is present with greater urgency than the individual's physically ill peers. Due to the stigma surrounding addiction, however, the mentally ill choose not to announce the losing battle with their current challenges.
In recent years, negative ideas and connotations surrounding addiction have definitely improved, particularly since the earlier part of the century. Alcoholics are no longer sent off to pysch wards and mental institutions; a breadth of knowledge on the subject is readily available. Scientific and psychiatric communities alike recognize alcoholism as a legitimate disease. Treatment methods include regular attendance at 12-step meetings, forming a relationship with a higher power, reaching out to others in a support network, and staying active in one's recovery. The biggest success stories boast stories of a renowned sense of spirituality. In terms of addiction, the plight is the same. Drug addicts recover from a debilitating addiction through spiritual means; by reaching out for help; and by being accountable to a group of individuals who have trudged the same road. However, knowledge based in the recovery process from both addiction and alcoholism is often limited to specialists in the relevant fields or family members of addicts and alcoholics only.
One of the barriers preventing afflicted individuals from seeking addiction treatment lies in the stigma surrounding addiction. Addiction stigma is directly correlated with the language frequently used to describe addiction-related topics. Addicts suffer from low self-esteem. They become withdrawn and isolate in their bedrooms anything to avoid being out in public or immersed in social situations. They want to stop, but find they cannot. Terminology that perpetuates the stigma of addiction only serves to intensify these deep-seated negative feelings. For example, the following list is inclusive of terminology that exacerbates an addict's sense of guilt, shame, and isolation:
- Calling an addict a "junkie" or an "abuser" doing so leaves no discrepancy between the human being and their disease; implies a lack of will power or character.
- Drug Abuse in general, addicts abuse drugs; but using the term "abuse" can have long-term negative effects, due to the connotation of the term. It attributes the disease of addiction solely to the individual, ignoring environmental and genetic predispositions.
- Referring to an addict's test results as "dirty" causes the addict to feel filthy; unclean; undeserving of love and support.
- Claiming that an addict "has a drug habit" doing so evades the medical assessment of addiction; negates the fact that addiction is characterized by a physical allergen, a mental preoccupation, and a spiritual sickness.
- Labeling an addict a "user" leaves the addict feeling shameful, alone, and a supposed drain on society's resources; can also be misleading due to its part in describing individuals who have experimented with drugs but not necessarily suffered from a full-blown addiction.
- Over time, we encourage the general public to conduct further research on the disease of addiction. Through increased access to addiction information, and factual awareness on the subject, individuals will learn to replace terms like "junkie" in describing an addict seeking recovery services -- with "a patient undergoing treatment for a substance misuse disorder".
Television shows, movies, and other media outlets tend to perpetuate the negative light that beams on the disease of addiction. Hopefully addicts, family members, and addiction specialists will band together in a movement for change. School systems can also help in the fight to recognize addiction as a serious disease of which professional treatment is strongly recommended, by incorporating the use of non-stigmatizing terms such as us:
- Harmful use of drugs (versus "reckless use of drugs")
- Hazardous drug use
- Risky drug use
- Substance free (rather than "dirty" when referring to drug-free screening results)
- Replacing "user" with "person involved in risky substance use"
- "Medically monitored treatment regimen" as an alternative to the term "substitution therapy" which refers to the addicts receiving counter-indicative drugs throughout the detoxification process; inaccurately describes addicts prescribed antidepressants in early sobriety
- Instead of "drug habit" use terms such as "an individual engaged in active addiction", or an individual suffering from "a substance misuse disorder"
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Over time, we hope the stigma around addiction will be lifted. Individuals afflicted with the disease carry enough weight on their shoulders close family members and friends cannot afford to intensify their negative feelings by perpetuating a stigma founded in ignorance and a general lack of empathy.
