The power to label is the power to destroy. Much has been written regarding the stigmatization of the addict and alcoholic - their shaming, their devaluation, their discrimination.

Research has delineated the outcomes of such prejudicial treatment as affecting the mental and physical health of the stigmatized as well as informing national, institutional and organizational policies.

In 2016, the National Academy of Sciences produced a glossary of stigma terminology, together with its types, targets, and suggested interventions. At the top of their infographic pyramid of evidence-based interventions is “Education”. I agree wholeheartedly. Education is of paramount importance. But who should be educated by whom and with what content?

One recent proposal by a well-funded central organization to effect change in the perspective of the stigmatizers is to launch a national movement to “End Addiction Stigma”. Very ambitious and well-meaning. Will it work? How can it! This self-proclaimed “central actor” is singing the same counterintuitive song - that addiction is a life-long disease that can only be managed, not cured.

That this population has an insatiable propensity to misuse illicit substances as well as legal ones. “The opiate epidemic is raging and everyone is at risk!”

“Evidence-based” practices suggest medically-assisted treatment and public enmeshment in the culture of recovery as the panacea.

People in recovery are encouraged and sometimes shamed into attending public events, displays, and conferences with the proclaimed intent of showing their faces and sharing their voices of recovery!

And we wonder why stigma is stronger than ever.

The question of how to stop the stigma remains.

It won’t be stopped by a recovery movement that does not recognize the reality that all human beings are magnificent and flawed.

How to stop the stigma? Answer: Don’t try!

Rather, recover the reality that ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE flawed! Cold fact!

You don’t “stop the stigma” by others. You make it irrelevant to you!

Irrelevant! You learn to become self-assured of your humanity and that of all others.

You realize that addiction is only one manifestation of our imperfection.

You rejoice in your capacity to enact positive changes!

You dispose of your “addict”/ “alcoholic” label because you now know they are behavioral terms of a distant past!

“Once an addict, once an addict!” - because you say so, because you live so!

-Ed@recoverreality.com

#addictionrecovery