“Don’t judge me by my past, I don’t live there anymore.” – Anonymous
About two months ago, my post was titled “Misconceptions and Stigmas Part I” but I got too wrapped up in the misconceptions and didn’t write about stigmas. There is more to say about misconceptions in the future but today’s post I want to focus on the stigma of addiction and its impact. To a large degree, the stigma of addiction is derived from misconceptions. It is my goal in writing this blog that we may educate people and bring down some of the barriers to successful recovery, so please join me in a discussion of “Stigma of Addiction and the Damage Done”.
The Stigma of Addiction
As I have written scientific reports for years, I have this compulsion to define my topic. So, what am I referring to in this post as the stigma of addiction. In this post, we will consider the stigma to be a very negative stereotype from which people make judgements and take actions. If you were to treat someone based on their race, religion, or sex the way many people treat addicts, you would be branded a racist, sexist, or worse. Some of the behavior that we see toward addicts as a result of this stigma include:
- Avoiding addicts and their loved ones, as if addiction is contagious.
- Refusing to ever trust addicts in recovery because of “past sins”.
- Refusing to provide help to addicts because “they do this to themselves”.
- Looking down on addicts and their families because “there must be something wrong with them that this happened”.
The Addict
Obviously, the most profound impact of the negative stigma of addiction is felt by those most vulnerable to the damage it can do, the addicts. I shouldn’t need to say this but just to make sure it is clear to everyone, ADDICTION IS NOT CONTAGIOUS. Your family will not catch addiction from contact with an addict. Obviously, we want to protect our kids and keep them from hanging out with individuals that are “trouble”. But if your son or daughter goes to school, they have already been in contact with those individuals for a long time. In my opinion, you will not keep your loved-ones safe from addiction by shielding them from unsavory-types. You will protect them by educating them. As I said before, I don’t think that there are many people pushing drugs anymore but there are plenty of people supplying drugs if you want them.
Treating an addict like he/she has leprosy does not protect anyone, but it does harm the addict. Drugs such as opiates are largely used in isolation. In discussing when and how he used, our son told me that he didn’t want his friends around when he used because “They get in the way of the high.” I believe that many addicts, my son included, started using because of low self-esteem and discomfort in social situations. Isolating these addicts just drives them further into their addiction.
SIDE NOTE: To my son’s friends, this does not apply to you, you were awesome friends. To Ingham’s Powder Coating in Denver, Pennsylvania none of this applies to you. You showed Nate that you trusted and valued him and that helped him more than I can express.
Not trusting addicts because of things that they did in the dark depths of their addiction may be just self-preservation, so isn’t that okay? I understand self-preservation and I don’t blame people for caution, but I do believe in a thing called FORGIVENESS. Things that addicts do when their brain is being twisted by active addiction can be bad. My son would say “We lie, we steal, that’s what we do when we are using”. But a large part of the 12-steps of AA involve acknowledging what you did, forgiving yourself, and making amends. That is a huge challenge, especially the forgiving yourself part, made that much harder when they feel that no one trusts them. Last week, someone ran into my car in the parking lot. He came to get me, owned up to his mistake and has arranged to get my car fixed. Should I hold a grudge against him because he wasn’t more careful? That would be ridicules, so let’s cut a break to those that were in a terrible place and are trying to get better/be better.
I have already hammered on those that would look down on addicts and refuse them reasonable help in past posts. If you don’t see what is wrong with treating addicts that way, go back to the earliest posts and start reading. Actually, if you don’t see what is wrong, then you probably stopped reading long ago. One thing to note is that I used the term “reasonable help”. Some of the most difficult decisions that we had to make were framed by the question, “are we helping our son or are we aiding/facilitating his addiction?” I frequently won’t give money to a homeless person if I suspect that they are an addict because I fear that I may be continuing their addiction when they need to be forced into seeking help. How we treat people need not be all or nothing. Please educate yourself about addiction before it directly impacts you and let’s work to bring this crisis to an end.
The Family
When we found out that our son was an addict, we had some very difficult choices to make that were piled on top of the nearly impossible decisions that we had to make daily regarding his addiction. We decided that the best course of action was to keep his addiction to ourselves. This decision was driven by our fear of the stigma that would be placed on our family, our house, and our addicted son. We feared the judgement that “they must not be the good family that they seem to be because their son is a drug addict”. We live in a small town/rural area and rumors can run wild. Who knows what explanations might get passed around to explain what happened.
I believe that one reason that people don’t learn about addiction is that it is more comfortable to believe that your family is safe because you are good people and have strong character. Those thoughts reduce your anxiety, but they may make you judgmental and they get in the way of solving the problem.
We feared the way that people would treat us, knowing that we had raised an addict. To this day, people still avoid us sometimes and it is difficult to tell if they are judging us or just don’t know what to say. Let me clue you in, talk to us. Talk about Nate, talk about something else but talk to us. You won’t catch what we have, and it hurts to feel alone. Give my wife a hug if you feel close enough, she needs it.
We also decided to keep quiet about Nate’s addiction so as not to hinder him in the future. Like every family, we clung to the hope that someday, preferably soon, his recovery would be strong enough to stop him from ever relapsing again. We did not want him to have his future opportunities hindered by a statement like “are you sure you want to hire him, you know he is an addict, right?”
Isolation is difficult and painful, whether you imposed it on yourself because you thought it was what was best at the time or because people are judging or fear you. I don’t think that I can say this too much, get educated about addiction so that you are not uncomfortable around those impacted by addiction and they don’t feel like they have to hide in the shadows.
The Impact
The Addict and Society
Why should you care about tearing down the stigma of addiction if you are not impacted, don’t know me or anyone like me? The simple answer is that we are all impacted, this is a societal issue in addition to an individual issue. Likewise, I live in rural Pennsylvania, in my township over 95% of the residents are of European/white decent. Does this mean that I don’t need to be concerned with racism, that it does not impact me? Hardly.
Addiction is killing people, destroying people, destroying families, destroying the very fabric of our society. When you judge or isolate addicts, you make their recovery so much more difficult. Alcoholics Anonymous is anonymous for a very good reason, they frequently are not accepted by people despite the arduous journey that they are taking. I look forward to the day when the anonymity is solely that you don’t have the right to reveal another’s struggles not that you fear judgment of your own. Staying in recovery and managing your addiction is a nearly impossible challenge, must we make it even more difficult? Are addicts not people just like you and I? I have my faults just as you do. We are just lucky that we were blessed to not be burdened with a mind inclined toward addiction.
Another impact of stigmatizing addiction is that it makes many addicts reluctant to seek help. Getting an addict into recovery can be very difficult, made all the more difficult by the fear that “everyone will know” when I disappear for 30 days. How do I explain the gap in my employment history when I try to get a job again after time in rehab and recovery? These are just more obstacles thrown in the path of recovery.
The Family
Families of addicts need support and need to not feel judged for their loved-one’s affliction. I still think that we made the right decision by sharing our journey with Nate’s addiction with very few people at the time. I think that our fears of what people would think and say were valid. But the isolation was very difficult. Most families either become closer or fall apart. We became closer. The community of friends that help us now that Nate is gone, and we can speak out is a tremendous help. I wish that we could have reached out to these people while we were struggling with his addiction..before we began struggling with his loss. This is not a comment on our friends, I know that they would not have judged us. It is society as a whole that drove us into isolation and that needs to change.
Fear of being judged for your loved-one’s addiction keeps people from sharing and that keeps people from learning. We are free to talk to you about our journey now, the worst has already happened to us. Most people do not see addiction that is all around them. Many people judge all addicts based upon the addicts that they see on the street. If people understood the how’s and whys of addiction they would be less inclined to judge any addicts. They would be more inclined to help and perhaps less help would be needed if fewer obstacles were placed in front of recovering addicts.
Do you have thoughts or experiences to share? Please comment, let’s work together and help each other to understand this problem.
I hope that you will join me in two weeks. I may actually get back to more misconceptions and stupid brain tricks, or maybe something better will come along.