Stigma is the negative belief people hold about a specific person, group, or characteristic. Often, stigma is based on fear and false information and leads to increased isolation, discrimination, and prejudice. Having a substance use disorder is a characteristic that causes a person to be stigmatized.
At Safe Harbor Recovery Center, in Portsmouth, Virginia, we think it’s important to share accurate information about addiction to reduce the stigma surrounding substance use disorders.
How Stigma Shows up in Addiction
There are several ways that stigma manifests in relation to people who struggle with addiction, such as:
- Perceiving addiction as a moral failing by someone weak or selfish, instead of recognizing it as a chronic disease that is frequently the result of trauma or mental illness
- Treating people who use substances like they are dangerous, criminals, or unpredictable
- Not understanding how the biology behind addiction makes it difficult for a person to give up substances and enter recovery
- Not recognizing how isolation and stigma keep people sick
- Seeing relapse as failure, instead of an opportunity to learn and grow
- Acting as though people who overdose deserve to die or don’t deserve quality treatment
- Justifying underfunding of addiction treatment programs by claiming that people who struggle with addiction don’t deserve help or cannot be helped
- A person who has substance use disorder internalizing society’s stigma against them and believing they are a bad person, who doesn’t deserve help and is incapable of change
How to Address Stigma
The more people who stand up against the stigma that people in addiction face, the better. Some ways we can address stigma include:
- Speaking compassionately about people who have struggled with substance misuse by removing outdated, judgmental, and inaccurate terms related to addiction from your vocabulary and educating people who continue to use those words
- Recognizing all people as having worth and dignity, even if they experience addiction and not only if they successfully enter recovery
- Addressing the shame and discrimination that keep people from asking for and getting help
- Celebrating all pathways to recovery
- Ensuring that high-quality treatment is available and easily accessible
- Increasing access to evidence-based treatment options, including Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT)
- Talking more about MAT and how medications can make withdrawal symptoms and cravings more manageable, reducing the risk of relapse
- Ensuring people understand Narcan, how it works to reverse overdoses, and that it is not a tool that fuels addiction
- Increasing education for doctors and dentists who prescribe controlled substances, so that they can prevent, identify, and address concerning misuse of prescription drugs and also offer care that is non-judgmental and compassionate
- Understanding that people who have faced addiction and their families have valuable contributions to make to our society
- Recognizing that while certain groups are at greater risk for substance use disorders, this is because of higher levels of trauma, not because the people in that group are less capable of making good choices
- Promoting the value of lived experience in helping people who have faced addiction
- Support housing first initiatives that help unhoused people obtain safe shelter without demanding that they first provide proof of being substance-free
Holding Loving Boundaries
Addressing stigma and showing compassion does not mean becoming a doormat or enabling unhealthy decisions. You can advocate against stigma and still maintain personal boundaries.
Regardless of whether they use substances, you should definitely set and hold boundaries if you love someone who is:
- Abusive
- Dangerous
- Manipulative
- Exploitative
- Doing things that are bad for your well-being
A boundary is a rule you set for your own behavior. It recognizes that the other person is still allowed to make their own choices but acknowledges your own right to react accordingly. Some examples of boundaries include:
- Not allowing people into your home unless they are sober
- Leaving gatherings where you observe someone behaving as though they are under the influence
- Refusing to give money to someone who used it for alcohol or other drugs previously
- Being unwilling to lie for someone, to protect them from the consequences of their decisions
At Safe Harbor Recovery Center, we want people with substance use disorders to find their way to recovery as quickly as possible. Addressing stigma makes it safer and easier to ask for and receive the help they need to get sober and start building a new life.