Society ridicules drug addicts

[fruitfly]

The social stigma associated with addiction disease implies that it is a moral dilemma or a result of weakness and a lack of willpower, when in fact addiction is a disease.

Donna Conley, CEO of the Ohio Citizen Advocates of Chemical Dependancy Prevention and Treatment, said society does not accept addiction as a disease.

"Society views addiction as a moral weakness or a personal failing," Conley said. "The American Medical Association designated addiction as a disease back in the 1950s and there is more research everyday that supports that position in terms of research and changes in the brain as a result of addiction."

Curtis Haywood, clinical therapist and substance abuse specialist at Ohio State, said social stigma intensifies the level of shame and prolongs the denial process.

"There is an obvious stigma and scrutiny with statements like 'what are you a crack head?'" Haywood said. "The last thing someone wants to admit is that they have a drug problem."

Conley said stigmas surrounding addiction disease delay treatment and recovery.

"Society's negative views cause people to deny they have a problem, delaying treatment," Conley said. "They feel ashamed and not worthy of treatment."

Leah Young, spokeswoman of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said society's outlook on addiction is vastly different than the view of other chronic illnesses.

"SAMHSA attempts to educate the public that substance abuse disorders are diseases and they need to be treated like a disease, like diabetes or heart problems," Young said. "For example, if Joe winds up still smoking and drinking after being hospitalized for congestive heart failure, you go and see him, bring flowers and tell him to get well soon. But if someone is trying to get over an addiction to pain killers and they have a relapse, everyone says, 'why don't they just throw him in jail, look at him.'"

Conley said insurance policies reflect stigmas as well amongst chronic diseases.

"Addiction coverage has a higher co-pay and limited in-patient visits," she said. "Whereas with others (illnesses), there are no limits. (Persons with addiction disease) are treated differently even though they suffer from a chronic disease."

Stigmas and stereotypical ideas of society also result in discriminatory polices and laws, Conley said.

"It is a federal law that places a lifetime ban on anyone who has been convicted of a drug-related offense, which states they can never receive government assistance," Conley said.

The Higher Education Act prohibits persons convicted of a drug-related offense from applying for federal financial aid. Conley believes this act is discriminatory.

"What that says is, once a drug addict, always a drug addict," Conley said. "It denies the fact that people can and do recover from addiction disease."

Maristela Montiero, regional advisor on alcohol and substance abuse at the Pan American Health Organization, said stigmas force individuals with addiction disease out of their communities into a non-judgmental subculture.

"It is a marginal way of life," Montiero said. "They become more and more isolated from mainstream society and it makes it harder for them to quit. Society should try to include them instead of continuously excluding them."

Society has a misconception about what someone with addiction disease looks like, a central Ohio graduate in recovery said.

"It is an equal opportunity disease," she said. "It can affect anybody. We look just like everybody else."
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Society ridicules drug addicts
By Arlyne Farris, The Lantern
Published: Wednesday, September 29, 2004

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[snakjaw]

I don't have to believe that addiction is the same as malaria in order to acknowledge that treatment is warranted for those who want it.

 

[E-llusion]

What should be noted is that society "ridicules" illegal drug addicts much more so than legal ones which just adds more to the stigma.

 

[JTMarlin]

I don't think they're ridiculed, per se, but their morals are questioned. Non-drug using people aren't used to committing a felonious crime on a day-to-day basis, which is why illegal drug addicts are stigmatized.

 

[gloggawogga]

While I agree addiction shouldn't be stigmatized as a moral weakness, or as illegal, I don't think it should be stigamtized as a disease either. I mean would you say the coffee drinkers or chocolate eaters of the world have a disease? Addiciton is really just a lifestyle. Whether that lifestyle is something acceptable or something one desires to change depends on the particular circumstance and on one's values. For those who wish to change their lifestyles, support should be available. For those who don't, they shouldn't be bothered unless they do something harmful to someone else.

 

[ayjay]

^ I agree - habitual substance use is neither a moral weakness, OR a disease. In some ways, these patterns of behaviour fit a "disease model" - there are signs and symptoms (eg - DSM IV dependence criteria), a 'natural history', a prognosis. However, to say "this is a disease" is the classic error of confusing the map for the terrain. There are other models that can also adequately describe habitual substance use. Also, patterns of behaviour can be changed with the 'power of the mind' - try doing that with cancer!

It would be more accurate to say that habitual substance use can be a health issue, provided that you use a social model of health, rather than a purely medical one.

And yeah - no-one gives a shit if you are physically dependant on caffeine (unless you are one of those straight-edge c**ts )

 

[Hessel R.K.]

While I agree addiction shouldn't be stigmatized as a moral weakness, or as illegal, I don't think it should be stigamtized as a disease either. I mean would you say the coffee drinkers or chocolate eaters of the world have a disease? Addiciton is really just a lifestyle. Whether that lifestyle is something acceptable or something one desires to change depends on the particular circumstance and on one's values. For those who wish to change their lifestyles, support should be available. For those who don't, they shouldn't be bothered unless they do something harmful to someone else.

Thats a good way of putting it. It is a lifestyle, and a disease that it is possible to beat with your mind...

But if a parasitic infection can be considered a disease, when in reality it is an attack on your body by another organism, then I think its ok to call addiction a diesease.

 

[JTMarlin]

It's a psychological disorder, no different than obsessive compulsive disorder or an anxiety disorder. Once you begin taking something for awhile the drug(if it's an opiate/opioid, alcohol, benzo, or barbiturate) may become physically addicting, like a vitamin or hormone. You can't just stop getting any Vitamin A or insulin, even if you're healthy completely healthy after a week of not getting that certain hormone or vitamin you're going to have terrible physical symptoms. A disease isn't self-administered. Drugs are self-administered. It's not a "life style" either, since that really isn't anything in itself. But it's a lot harder for someone to quit doing meth or coke than it is for someone who's been lazy for a few months straight to start exercising. So the closest thing drug addiction is to a current medical condition is either OCD or phobia.

Nobody here is going to say they had no choice in trying whatever they're addicted to. That's just idiocy and drugs are never going to be legalized if users won't admit they had a choice to get high. I can't stand people trying to play victim.

 

[E-llusion]

Thats a good way of putting it. It is a lifestyle, and a disease that it is possible to beat with your mind...

I disagree, while some may see it and "live" the lifestyle of a drug addict (whatever stereotype that is), a lot of people use drugs on regular basis and lead pretty normal lives. You would not be able to tell they are addicted to anything unless they told you. So it does not have to be a lifestyle, however by keeping the drugs illegal and the stigma around drug users, there is a perceived and re-inforced "junkie" stereotype.

 

[JTMarlin]

Those people who live the "lifestyle" give drug users who are completely normal citizens a bad name. Nobody would ever know I did drugs if they were to see me just walking down the street. Hell, they'd probably think I was some Bible fanatic, a frat daddy or something. I don't even live the whole drug "life" anymore. I did senior year of HS and last year in the dorms. It gets old being around people whose only common interest with you is smoking weed, doing blowcaine, or getting drunk everyday. It makes bad habits even worse because they make it seem like it's a good thing to be fucked up all the time, making your not-so-normal habits seem relatively nothing. You think "oh, I'm fine compared to him...he drinks a twelve pack everyday and smokes 3 grams of weed, I only drink eight beers and smoke a 1.5 grams." Or whatever the drugs your crowd does. In truth, that life is shit. It's also a very expensive, time consuming, and counter-productive lifestyle. Spending thousands of dollars to fail out of school...for what? If you're going to do drugs, don't act like you do.

 

[gloggawogga]

Ok I didn't mean "lifestyle" in some sort of stimgatized way. You can do yoga and excersise every day and be vegetarian and thats a lifestyle too, as in its part of how you live your life.

 

[JTMarlin]

Oh I know, we were just doing a discussion of lifestyle too. There is a drug lifestyle, no doubt.

 

[brown_deer]

A disease isn't self-administered. Drugs are self-administered.

How can addiction be considered a disease if people are self-administering its cause?

 

[JTMarlin]

I said it wasn't a disease. Read before you reply.

 

[Leprechaun]

Repeated administration of a drug with the awareness of its consequences to a degree where your life falls apart is a mental disorder similar to obsessive compulsive disorder.

OCD is seen as a disorder/disease, just as addiction is.

I know many people who have done many drugs and are not addicts, on the other hand I have seen other who are addicts. There is a notable difference...

 

[Pander Bear]

Ok I didn't mean "lifestyle" in some sort of stimgatized way. You can do yoga and excersise every day and be vegetarian and thats a lifestyle too, as in its part of how you live your life.

I've never met somebody who loved doing yoga everyday, and tried to quit, only to have a panic attack, harsh physical and psychological withdrawls, and ended up killing themselves. I've met several drug addicts who ended up doing that. Drug addicts didn't sign up for that sort of behavior. They signed up for a good time. We, as a society should be compassionate towards them. They do have a disease, if only a mental one. Calling it a disease isn't meant to codify and clinicize it, its just a designation meant to take the blame off the individual, in the same way that we now say that somebody is "afflicted with manic depression" rather than "judy is a manic depressive". Both create distance between an individual and a mental condition defined as abhorent.

 

[gloggawogga]

I've never met somebody who loved doing yoga everyday, and tried to quit, only to have a panic attack, harsh physical and psychological withdrawls, and ended up killing themselves.

I never said all lifestyles were the same or that all were healthy. But a lifestyle is a lifestyle.

They do have a disease, if only a mental one.

Do coffee drinkers have a disease? What about light alcohol drinker who drinks say only two drinks a day, every day? Cigarrete smokers? Pot smokers? Where do you draw the line with your judgement on what's "ok" and what's a "disease"?

 

[dankstersauce]

Do coffee drinkers have a disease? What about light alcohol drinker who drinks say only two drinks a day, every day? Cigarrete smokers? Pot smokers? Where do you draw the line with your judgement on what's "ok" and what's a "disease"?

I think the line is drawn when your drug or drugs of choice gets in the way of living your life, and sort of take over your life. I figure you could live a completely productive life, and if you wanna get high after work or school to wind down thats ok. but the problem is when you can't handle work or school without being high on something. it's no good when you wake up and just wanna get high.

i still wouldn't call it a disease, it just becomes a habit so deeply engrained in your mind it's hard to stop. it's just like if you did any activity for a number of years, and stop of course it's gonna suck just cuz it's become the norm.

 

[brown_deer]

I said it wasn't a disease. Read before you reply.

It was a rhetorical question....

 

[Chuff]

They do have a disease, if only a mental one. Calling it a disease isn't meant to codify and clinicize it, its just a designation meant to take the blame off the individual, in the same way that we now say that somebody is "afflicted with manic depression" rather than "judy is a manic depressive". Both create distance between an individual and a mental condition defined as abhorent.

Take the Blame off8( Why is there blame in the first place? Substance use is a matter of choice, yes for some destructive patterns of use (self and societal) may seem beyond their control but this is because from their perspective the choice not to use is either to painful/difficult or they have no belief it is possible, every substance user has a good reason to use, for some the emotional pain of life may be unbearable (generalisation sorry) and for others their self esteem may be insufficent to motivate change (what low self esteem in a problem user never!) but to use the definition of disease is dis-empowering and to allocate blame is lazy.

The medical model continues to attack the source and will work towards innoculations and treatments which prevent use diverting attention from the far more pertinent social issues surronding substance use/misuse.