Addiction and Stigma is Everyone’s Struggle

All of Us

Written by and for people with Lived Experience - Port Alberni Community Action Team - Families Helping Families

Today’s Learning Moment – 01 18 21 Issue: Addiction and Stigma is Everyone’s Struggle

“How to get rid of stigma”.   “How we say things changes how we see things”.  “Say it differently, See it differently”.  “The pain of stigma”  “Stigma, how it keeps addiction alive”.

Many people talk about how it is the person's responsibility to heal themselves from the struggles of addiction.  Some talk about trauma being the gateway.  Some talk about the harm that people impose on their family and friends. This world view focuses on how it must be the hard work and commitment, the responsibility of the individual that is key to recovery.

As a counsellor, I have heard volumes of stories about the lives of people who have struggled with drug use and substance use disorder or addiction if you prefer.  And I have heard the stories from their families and friends.  Here is the common thread that I have discovered in my years of listening.Substance dependence disorder or addiction develops as a coping tool for the pain we learn to medicate away with substances that can be highly addictive. It is far beyond partying, recreational use or choice. It is a catch 22 vicious cycle that causes so much personal damage that it destroys individuals and their families. It is also reinforced by the messages that the world sends to us when we are struggling, and how we perceive those messages. Often the messages come from sources we have trusted in our lives so we receive them as truth.

This is why the world needs to understand its role in how a person can heal from the negative effects of addiction.

The world has been taught to completely shun and ostracized anyone who does drugs. The world has taught all of us that drugs are bad, not necessarily because they are unhealthy if used improperly but because they are demonic, evil, wrong and can turn people into criminals.  We have been taught to fear and hate drugs for the wrong reasons.

Lies have been told that have led us to believe that drugs will automatically kill our kids, drive us to psychotic insanity and hurt everyone around us. Ironically well over half the world's population uses drugs recreationally. The vast majority of youth experiment with drugs (remember alcohol is a drug) without the fear-based impacts that have been fed to us year after year, decade after decade. Even though many of the lies are proven false, we still fear them.

Don’t think for a second that I don’t recognize the damage drugs can do once the disorder sets in and even if used too often recreationally. There are valid facts about the impacts of drug use. However in this article I want to explore other damages that occur that prevent walking the road of healing.

It is the beliefs that created prohibition that has made anyone who uses a drug a criminal, not the drug itself. Read that again and allow it to challenge everything you think you know about drug use.

It is not the drug.

It is the criminalization and the subsequent beliefs about drug use that we have embraced that has made it necessary for people, who have developed the disorder, to manipulate, hide, lie, betray and so forth.  These are the things that have hurt families and friends. It is prohibition and its lies that have infiltrated family belief systems, that has torn families apart and destroyed relationships

It is the fact that authorities have developed and perpetuated the lies. We are told to “ostracized” perceived undesirable populations that do not fit in with certain political, moral and corporate ideology. We have been programmed to segregate drug users into prisons or treatment centers to make them disappear and call it justice and or treatment. We are at the point where we “know without a doubt” that anyone who develops the disorder, is truly a criminal and therefore a bad person.

We equate sick with bad.  The person suffering from the disorder comes to believe this as well, stripping away hope and possibility.  The person comes to believe they are the immoral, criminal, spiritually devoid, failure the world tells them they are because they succumbed to the disorder.  This is how stigma is maintained.  And it is killing people.  And this is why we hide!

Because of this world view, one of the first things a person learns how to do with their experimentation and their regular use is hiding it or at least minimize it; “I only had a couple of beers”.  This requires deception and manipulation. Most of us have done this. The worse the disorder becomes, the worse the deception. Thus, the world fears, judges, punishes and banishes the drug user as the disorder evolves.

This stigma, this attitude prevents people form asking for help early in their illness. It casue all of us to bury our heads in the sand, ignoring all the signs until the desease is so well established that it makes it almost impossible to for recovery.

There is no way to accurately determine if and how the disorder will develop, but we know all too well it does. Woe is to the person who develops the disorder and becomes addicted. They must be shamed and punished into getting better. Even the seemingly natural response of “send them to treatment” can feel judgemental, punitive and disingenuous to the person suffering.

It is these beliefs about the drug, not the drug itself, beliefs held by the individuals suffering, and the world, that are causing the most damage. If these beliefs changed and we stopped demonizing people, the physical and mental health challenges that do occur would be much more manageable. Think about it; “my loved one is suffering and is sick, not a bad person or a criminal. They are not less of a person or less deserving of love because they have developed a disorder”. How does that change how you see things? How will that change how the suffering person might respond?

So yes, the person must deal with and try to heal that pain. The world must learn to stop dishing it out. That can be done by challenging the beliefs about something that is a physical and mental health issue, not a crime, not a shortcoming, not a personality flaw not a spiritual void. Both the person and those in their world, each, are needed to be equally active in the healing process.

Here is the formula for eliminating this stigma:
“If we change the way we say things we change the way we see things. If we change the way we see things, we change the way we say things”. This is where much of the healing starts.

All our past articles can be found here: https://ptalbcat.blogspot.com/
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Author: Ben Goerner – Ben advocates for people with substance illness

Families Helping Families is an initiative of the Port Alberni Community Action Team. We send out “Learning Moment” articles regularly to help folks understand substance illness. Knowledge is vital in understanding the illness of our family members. You may copy, distribute or share our articles as long as you retain the attribution. You can be added to our distribution list by dropping us a note to - albernihelp@gmail.com