Stigma.
I think you generally know what the word “addiction” means, and you generally probably know what “stigma” means. Basically, when you combine the two contexts, the idea is that the “addiction” is some type of “moral failure” of the person suffering it. It’s important to note here that many (and I mean many) things are addictions that we only tangentially talk about in the negative. The most notable example is “work.” Millions of people are addicted to work, are rather addicted to what they seem to get from work (relevance, in other words), but we generally don’t see this as a problem because it’s a “pro-social addiction.” I personally find a lot of this to be bullshit. Here’s the core problem: most people think of the word “addiction” and they think of, let’s say, this:
That is definitely not “pro-social.”
Then they think of someone addicted to work, and they tend to think of that person in virtuous terms like he or she is a “go-getter” and “moves the needle” and “gets things done.” In recent years, we’ve started to discuss burnout more, but I wouldn’t say anyone really cares about burnout that much (it’s a good thing to write articles about, but the ugly truth is that it’s seen as a badge of honor inside organizations). While someone addicted to work isn’t a zombie wearing their underwear inside out on a city street (good), someone addicted to work also is a bad role model to any children (bad), is often a bad partner to any spouse in the picture (bad), usually isn’t a good manager because they micromanage everything because of their addiction to the work (bad), etc, etc.
There’s a difference between being addicted to smack and being addicted to tracking documents, and I would never argue differently. But they’re both addictions, and we need to at least nod towards that.
Now, best I can personally tell and understand, I’m some kind of fucking addict. I think my addictions might best be defined as “alcohol,” or more specifically “IPAs,” and maybe a small dose of:
Whenever I think about addiction, I come back to this idea of stigma. I’ve written about this once. I’ll link it in a second. Just last week, I did a book club for my neighborhood and the book was Raising Lazarus by Beth Macy, who is the same woman who wrote Dopesick. It’s basically about opioid addiction and the Sackler family and all that. Six total people came to the book club, which I’d consider not bad for a first effort. A lot of us talked about the need to overcome the stigma of addiction, i.e. this idea that addicts are failures and it’s OK to cast them out. That’s the same attitude we hold for people in prison, and wouldn’t you know it — there’s a huge overlap between addicts and prison populaces.
This link will take you to some articles about “harm reduction.” Under the banner of “harm reduction,” you have stuff like clean needle exchanges. Basically a clean needle exchange says “OK, we know you’re going to do drugs. We want you to be safer.” It’s the same thing as fentanyl strips being sold on Amazon now. It’s acknowledging the problem and kinda leaning into it, in the name of safety. It obviously makes puritanical people who think any drug is the demise of society go absolutely crazy. You see this from Republican Senators all the time.
The biggest problem in confronting addiction is the stigma problem. If we cannot get over the stigma problem, we can’t do anything else about addiction — because the need for moral panic and culture war ideology will always rise to the forefront.
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The second problem with addiction discussions is the end state. It would be absolutely impossible to end addiction. Life is hard, and brain chemistry and genetics are what they are. Someone, somewhere, will get addicted to something. You cannot zero this out. You can rescue some people, and get some people sober, but someone is gonna want to do smack and walk around the streets like a zombie. We can’t get that number to zero, unfortunately.
Because we can’t agree on the end state and we can’t get over the stigma thing, we kinda run in circles on all this shit so often.
From my own perspective and the perspective of those I’ve spoken to about addiction and related topics, most people become addicts due to some mix of genetics and external, societal factors. I think the biggest one of those societal factors is a lack of community and/or support base. That’s a real proiblem that we don’t address writ large, as loneliness scales.
The most direct and purposeful way to approach addiction would be some type of community-driven thing, which is why you see some success with AA and NA. The problem with AA (to me) is that it’s very heavy-handed on the God front, so if you’re not kinda locked in to religion, it could make you recoil a bit. If you’re out there drinking 18 beers in 24 hours (I’ve done that), then it’s hard to believe in Jesus. Jesus isn’t going to come into the bar where you’re discussing the 1983 Chicago White Sox with some business traveler and knock the 10% IPA out of your hand. (I don’t think Jesus wants to do that, either.)
I can tell you I’ve currently been sober for about 58 days. It can be challenging and I still feel lonely and depressed a lot. I don’t have many friends and I’ve lost chunks over time, to divorce and other factors more about my own shortcomings.
I just try to not drink because:
So it’s weird writing this, because I’m arguing for community as the antidote to addiction, which I think I’ve argued for before as well.
But I’m not actually sure I feel any community or connection. I’m just out here trying to improve self. And maybe the only way to cut through “stigma” is to ignore it and just focus on yourself. That doesn’t work at the societal or political level, where we’ll always discuss “disgusting addicts” and “zombies” and “welfare queens” and “liberal DAs” and all that, but it might work at the personal level.
Takes?