Stigma - a set of negative and often unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something. This is something that each of us deals with on a daily basis. All walks of life, not just addicts, are stigmatized in one form or another by another person or group of people. Why? Mainly because they do not understand the people they are judging. However, for some reason, it seems as if addicts suffer the fate of a stigma, by not just a small group of people, but by everyone that has ever come in contact with addiction. Sadly, even loved ones who tried everything they could, a lot of the time succumb to the stigma of “you just can’t save us”.
The stigma is partially true. You can’t save us. No one other than the individual using can save that individual. Yet we fail to save ourselves time after time, attempt after attempt. One can easily see why the stigma exists and how easy it is to believe. When you walk by strung out addicts on the streets, rehabs have waiting lists, and there are support groups running daily meetings on every corner, it’s not hard to infer that we are doing it to ourselves. Why else would so many of us be in that situation to begin with? Unfortunately, that could not be further from the truth. That is the stigma. No, you cannot save us, but we cannot save ourselves without your help. That’s right, your help. We cannot do it alone.
The first step of recovery is admitting that we are powerless. That our addiction has made our lives unmanageable. How can you expect an addict (of any length of time) to go from using to not using and instantly be OK? It is not possible. When we take the first step it is because we have nothing left. Our health has failed, loved ones have left us, employers let us go and bill collectors can’t even contact you because you have no money to pay for a phone, and sadly in some cases, nowhere to live. So why is it that no one will help us? Why is it that there is such a strong stigma that continues to hold us down?
A lot, and probably most of it, has to do with education. Growing up we were all taught that drugs are bad. If you do drugs you can get in trouble and go to jail. If you do drugs you will start stealing, dealing, and eventually killing. We were, and still are in a lot of cases, taught our entire childhood, teenage and even college years that drug addicts are bad people. All our lives we hear about the “War On Drugs” as we watch prisons fill with dealers and addicts. We watch friends, family and loved ones destroy their lives. The worse their life gets, the worse their addiction gets. All society sees is a frail skeleton of what once was a man or woman, and in recent years, teenagers and children. They do not see the person we were, the person we are or the person we can be. You would be shocked at what a recovering addict can accomplish. Further down I will list some very accomplished recovering addicts.
Lack of education leads the stigma. But there are other factors that do not help the cause. Two of the biggest secondary offenders, health care and the legal system. Both systems designed to help and protect the people of the country actually hinder us. The medical field recognizes addiction as a neurological disorder. It has been this way for many years. Why is it then that the medical insurance industry will not treat addiction as such? While coverages and plans have gotten better most plans still have a 28 days and goodbye policy. Sending a sober addict out in to a world after 28 days may as well be the same as handing them their drug of choice. 28 days is not nearly long enough for us to retrain ourselves on how to assimilate back in to a world, that other than physically, we have not been a part of for a very long time. So what happens? Most of us relapse. Most of us end up back on the streets. Using to sober, using to sober… it becomes a vicious circle that is almost impossible to get out of because no one is willing to help. People you know walk by you on the street, seeing you just as strung out as you were before rehab. How can they not think it is your fault? How can they not think that you failed to stay clean?
The legal system makes it even worse. Addicts end up in jails every day, whether it be from driving under the influence, dealing, stealing or otherwise breaking the law so that they can support their habit. Take an active addict, throw them in a jail cell with no access to their drug, no access to counseling, no access to any help at all other than severe cases of detox and what happens? They get more fucked up then they already are and as soon as they get out they get high. Instead of treating the problem of addiction they punish the results that come out of addiction. That does nothing but make us hate ourselves even more.
So I ask you, addict to addict, why do we let this happen? Why do we continue to let society stomp us down and treat us like scum? Why do we continue to let the legal system destroy our lives instead of trying to better them? Instead of trying to help us? Why do we let the medical industry profit off us? We pay them monthly to provide their services yet they do not provide the services that we actually need. So what do we do? We do nothing. We do nothing because we now see ourselves as shit. We have no self-worth and no way to get it. We are taught to believe that our lives are over and we can never amount to anything. We are the forgotten souls. Our death rate rises yet nothing changes.
They are wrong. Some of the greatest people in history were/are recovering drug addicts. Benjamin Franklin, Opiates – Used until he died at 84 yet he managed to discover electricity! Sigmund Freud, Cocaine. Francis Crick, LSD. Thomas Edison, Cocaine. Paul Erdos, Amphetamines. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, LSD. So why can we not be successful? We can. We just need to believe in ourselves. We need to get society to believe in us.
It is time we change the stigma. It is time that we fight back. It is time that people realize we are a part of this society. Individually we can scream to death and no one will hear, but together, if we all fight together they have no choice but to listen. Children should be taught that addiction is a disease and that drugs and alcohol are the byproduct of that disease. They should be taught that addiction is treatable provided we are given the help that we need. Children need to see the real effects of drugs. They need to go to rehabs and see detox, they need to hear our stories, they need to hear why we woke up the disease in the first place. Insurance companies need to allow for at least 90 days – 90 days is long enough to help most from relapsing, 6 months would be even better. The legal system needs to stop locking addicts behind bars. Get us the treatment we need. We broke the law to fuel a disease that we cannot control. Is it OK to break the law? No. But it isn’t OK to persecute someone with a disease. Not all addicts are bad people. Not all bad people are addicts. We should be treated by who we are and not what we are doing.
None of this will happen if we sit back silently. You want a good life? Go get it. Easier said than done, I know. I am an addict. But it can be done. You want a good life for your children? Fight the stigma. Teach them the real truth behind addiction. Stand up against society. The only way to make the stigma go away is to show that even as an addict, if helped and treated correctly, we can succeed. We need to show that despite all odds if we have the tools we need we can become the next Bill Gates or Benjamin Franklin. We are addicts and just like those not suffering from our disease, we are people. It is time we demand to be treated that way.
