SOAR USA BULLETIN Fall/Winter 1994-95
The good news: the American people are finally starting to get it. Sort of. Surveys show that a strong majority of Americans understand that addiction is a disease, and believe that treatment is effective.
The bad news: They also think that if we're sick, it's our own fault.
It's not that the public doesn't care, it's just that they're confused. And no wonder. When legislators, doctors, academics, news columnists, and others who should know better talk about us as "substance abusers," it's easy to put us in the same category with child abusers, sexual abusers, and spouse abusers. We deserve to suffer. (Never mind that we were the ones abused by alcohol and other drugs!)
For some, the slight stems from a simple lack of understanding. But for others, the use of negative terminology is part of a strategy to preserve our second-class status.
Some might suggest that the distinction between "addiction" and "abuse is academic, a meaningless matter of semantics--of "political correctness." The truth is that our culture has a dark history of using academic and legalistic jargon to define minority groups as morally inferior and unworthy of either the rights or the duties of citizenship. Change came only when those groups rejected such terminology and demanded equal status.
We can learn much from those who have fought the battle with more success. Thirty years ago the communities around the United States struggled to deal with "mental illness." A few enlightened individuals understood that negative terminology breeds negative attitudes, in the public mind and among health and behavioral professionals. Thus was born the concept of community "mental health" centers. Focus on the solution, not the problem. And today political leaders at every level, regardless of ideology, almost unanimously recognize the value of mental health services. And some want to treat addiction disease as a mental health problem.
In the meantime, is it any surprise that politicians are still fighting "substance abuse" programs?
We in recovery have been part of the problem. We have both accepted and perpetuated the stigma that kept us from getting help and that has killed millions of addiction disease victims.
By hiding our recovery, we have sustained the most harmful myth about addiction disease: that it is hopeless. And without the examples of recovering people, it's easy for the public to continue thinking that victims of addiction disease are moral degenerates--and that those who recover are the morally enlightened exceptions.
We are the lucky ones--the ones who got well. And it is our responsibility to change the terms of the debate, for the sake of those who still suffer.
We have many places to draw the battle lines in our fight for truth and against stigma.
Why not make the first line in the sand a claim for positive terminology. Reject "substance abuse."
Let's hear it for "addiction recovery." The vast majority of us have never willfully abused alcohol or other drugs. Nor have we been afflicted with mental illness. Ant the vast majority of us will completely recover. The problem is that we have been taught to hide our recovery to avoid stigma! So let's come out of the closet.
Let's hear it for Recovery!
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