End Stigma | Shame Surrounding Addiction
Not until we end the stigma | shame surrounding addiction can we take the first steps to effectively treat it. Why? It is the stigma and shame that causes the people who suffer with this chronic, often relapsing brain disease (and those who love them) to believe they just don’t want recovery badly enough. And that is a big, fat lie.
After nineteen years working in this field, I can assure you that the person with addiction (aka substance use disorder) “wants” to stop the insanity. But until we societally, politically, legislatively, criminally, and medically understand and treat addiction for what it is, the stigma | shame surrounding addiction will keep millions of Americans stuck in their disease. And it will keep the tens of millions of Americans more who love them stuck in the insanity of trying to help a loved one with a disease they don’t understand.
What is It About the Stigma | Shame Surrounding Addiction
Stigma around addiction, for example, was one of the “four reasons America’s addiction treatment system is broken,” writes German Lopez. He reported this in his December 30, 2019 article for Vox titled, 1,000 people sent me their addiction treatment stories. Here’s what I learned from which I quote the following:
When writing about anything addiction-related, there’s an explanation I can expect for just about any problem: stigma.
…This has stuck with me ever since I went to Vermont in 2017 to see how the state built up its addiction treatment system. When I asked officials about the hurdles to building up the new system of care, I expected to hear a lot about money (a common problem in policymaking). But officials told me, in fact, that money wasn’t that big of a deal. Instead, the main barrier was stigma around addiction, fueled by the notions that addiction is a moral issue — not a health issue — and people with addiction don’t deserve public resources. Once that stigma was overcome, the money came easily. Source: German Lopez, 1,000 people sent me their addiction treatment stories. Here’s what I learned.
After reading this article, I was moved to share the reframing of a post I’d written back in 2013 on the shame of addiction. As Webster Dictionary defines these terms, shame “is a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety,” and stigma is “a mark of shame or discredit.”
What the Stigma | Shame Surrounding Addiction Does to People
I saw it again last night as I faced an audience of people in treatment for Substance Use Disorders (SUDs), aka addiction, and their family members, all of whom were present to hear my lecture.
I saw the crushing emotional pain that surrounds this family disease on their faces, in their body language, in the way they did or did not look me in the eye or venture a tentative smile.
End the stigma | shame surrounding addiction, and we take the first step towards treatment and recovery.
For the people with SUDs, it crossed the spectrum: shame, defeat, anger, embarrassment, defiance, sadness, regret, fear. Stigma. Shame.
For the family members, it crossed the spectrum: shame, defeat, anger, embarrassment, defiance, sadness, regret, fear. Stigma. Shame.
Some were numb, some still detoxing, some only there because it’s what they were supposed to do. For some, there was hope. For others, it was a last ditch effort. For some, it just was.
Later that evening, after the program, one young girl sobbed the pain of having her alcoholic father scream at her that very afternoon, yelling at her to, “Shut the @#!* up!” when she tried to explain why the person giving her a ride to visit him could only stay two days and not the three he demanded. He’d ended the call telling her not to come at all, that he was done.
Between sobs, the young girl pleaded, “How does a father do this? How can a father threaten to cut his daughter out of his life for something over which she has no control? And I know he’ll do it, and I don’t want that. God, I hate this @#!*ing shit – he’s been doing this my whole life! How does a father do this!?!?!”
It was that young girl, especially, who tore my heart open. They all do to some degree. But sometimes there’s one that really hits me harder than others, for one reason or another. After decades of my own experiences with family members and friends who abused or were dependent on alcohol, a decade of my own secondhand drinking recovery work and years of trying to help others on both sides of this family disease, I think it was her raw, gut-wrenching, core-stripping pain that left me crushed by my powerlessness to help her in that moment. It took me back to my own moments of that kind of pain.
So I wrapped her in my arms. She let me, and in time, she wrapped me back. And I held her tight, while she sobbed through her rage and her pain. But I had no words. There are no words at times like that because there are no words that can possibly touch the pain and make sense of the nightmare.
But when I got home, I wrote this post in the hopes that she will read it someday, when her pain is less raw, on a day when she will be able to let these words into her heart – actually into her brain – because it’s in her thoughts that words such as these must sink in order for her to ease her pain.
Six Suggestions to End the Stigma | Shame
Know it is not your Dad – the real person he was before his disease corrupted the very neural networks and neural network opportunities he needs to show you, his daughter, the love, respect, understanding, pride, and joy you so rightly deserve. He has a brain disease – one that is difficult to understand without understanding the disease. For this, consider these two websites: “The Addiction Project,” created by NIAAA, NIDA, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and HBO, and Drugs, Brains and Behaviors: The Science of Addiction,” created by NIDA.
Know it is not You – his daughter – you are the anyone or anything that interacts with his diseased brain that is now missing most of its normal functionality. It is not you – his daughter. The decades of chemical and structural changes that have occurred as a result of his disease make it so he cannot, nor will he ever, be the Dad you want him to be as long as he drinks any amount of alcohol and does not treat his disease. You are sadly the unwitting partner in The Dance of The Family Disease of Addiction
Know neither you nor your Dad is alone. Your dad is one of the 21+ million Americans struggling with alcohol or drug abuse or addiction – of which only 10% get the help they need. You are one of the one in four children who lives in a family with a parent addicted to alcohol or drugs. Yet this disease is so shrouded in secrecy and shame, we often feel alone and struggle to sort and live through the host of conflicting emotions that comes with this family disease. For more on this, consider reading my 2012 post, Behind Every Alcoholic or Drug Addict is a Family Member or Two or Three…
Understand that all you can do to help your Dad is to help yourself. Believe it or not, this will break the cycle because your exchanges are a cycle – they are “The Dance.” More importantly, it will help you live a sane and joyful life in spite of your Dad’s untreated brain disease. This help can be through therapy work with a counselor trained in addiction and its impacts on family members, a 12-step program for family members, mindfulness practices, and believe it or not, nutrition, exercise, and sleep. On this route, you will meet people who know the road you’ve traveled and are trained and/or have the personal experiences and recovery that can support you in your journey. Above all know – you are powerless over his brain on alcohol, which is what is meant by the concept of your Dad being Powerless Over Alcohol.
And when you can – when you are able – forgive. Forgive him because he knows what he’s doing and hates himself for not being able to control his drinking, for not remembering but knowing something bad must have happened, for not having any friends or a job, and for only having estranged family ties. He hates himself because he cannot, for whatever reason, take the necessary steps to start treating his disease – likely because of the secrecy and shame that still surrounds it. [I touch on this in my 2010 post, Recovering in Anonymity – Does it Continue the Secrecy and Shame.]
Forgive him to set yourself free, and know, that forgiveness does not mean erasing the pain or accepting the behaviors. It means letting go of the hope of a different past or a different outcome. Your Dad has a brain disease – a disease that robs him of his capability to think, feel, say, and do the things a father does when that father does not have this disease. Forgive in the sense you were both doing the best you could with what you knew at the time, which was a big fat zero. Forgive for your sake.
Know there is always hope. This brain disease can be successfully treated and people can live happier lives in recovery. To learn more about people who are doing this, today, check out Faces and Voices of Recovery and Faces of Recovery.
And Lastly
…know that I’m here and will do what I can to help you find resources and information. My confidential email is lisaf@BreakingTheCycles.com. There is no charge.
And to anyone else reading this post who finds themselves in a similar situation, I extend the same offer to you.
You may also find my latest book helpful — 10th Anniversary Edition If You Loved Me, You’d Stop! What you really need to know when your loved one drinks too much. You can find copies at your local library or book store or other online retailers.
Lisa Frederiksen
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Hi Lisa,
It is so sad to hear how addiction is affecting so many family members. The young girl you described is an innocent victim, yet she will feel the pain of substance use disorder for a lifetime. It is so unfortunate that so many can’t seem to move past the stigma of addiction to get the help that they need.
Hi Cathy – it really is, and I know you know through your work with families just how pervasive this stigmas is and how many family members are suffering like the girl I described. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.