So much stigmatizing in this article. It’s so very disappointing, especially coming from a professional with a stage. Words matter. http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/blog/tag/stigma
The words we use to describe addiction and people with addiction are important. Negative terms such as “addict”, “user”, “junkie”, and phrases such as “needs to get clean” contribute to the stigma against people with opioid use disorder and create barriers to accessing effective treatment. This can ultimately contribute to overdose. When we talk about people with diabetes, we don’t talk about them being “dirty,” we talk about their sugars. Similarly, we should focus on measurable changes to health for people with opioid use disorders.
Studies have shown that people who were referred to as “substance users” were more likely to be considered a threat or be responsible for their condition, whereas people who were referred to as having “substance use disorder” were more likely to be seen as needing help. This is a really key component to getting people into treatment and stemming the opioid crisis. A person is not defined by their disease. We need to keep that in mind as doctors, media, and lay-people when thinking about the opioid crisis. https://www.yalemedicine.org/stories/opioid-addiction-myths/?fbclid=IwAR3bGwjNSLIMAnZRMp3jjHLKTncOd8Wxmnu2uXNNxPL-pQh67oc-xaK7zFE
There is no physical or psychiatric condition more associated with social disapproval and discrimination than alcohol and/or other drug addiction (Corrigan, Watson, & Miller, 2006)
Addiction-related social stigma constitutes a major obstacle to personal and family recovery, contributes to the marginalization of addiction professionals and their organizations, and limits the cultural resources allocated to alcohol- and other drug-related problems.
Most stigma exists because people misunderstand addiction. The problem with addiction isn’t necessarily drug use. Most Americans, after all, use all kinds of drugs — caffeine, alcohol, medication — with few problems. The problem is when that drug use begins to hurt someone’s day-to-day function — by, say, putting his health at risk or leading him to steal or commit other crimes to get heroin. Medications like buprenorphine let people with drug addiction get a handle on their drug use without such negative outcomes, stabilizing the dangers of addiction, even if the medication needs to be taken indefinitely. This is proven: Systematic reviews of the research have found these medications cut all-cause mortality among opioid addiction patients by half or more, and the drugs are recommended by health groups like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute on Drug Abuse, and World Health Organization. Experts consider such medications the gold standard in opioid addiction care.
With every other disease, using a proven medication would be a no-brainer. Not so with addiction. The results can be deadly; take, for example, a 2013 case in New York state in which Judge Frank Gulotta Jr. refused to let Robert Lepolszki stay on methadone treatment because Gulotta saw medications as “crutches” — and Lepolszki died of an overdose months later. Because people see addiction as a moral issue, lifesaving medication suddenly becomes a sign that someone is too weak to deal with addiction on his own.
www.widewonder.life
