The Stigma of Addiction

I am not much for politics.  I try not to watch the news and I didn’t realize we had no Speaker of the House for a month.  I don't know much about Hunter Biden, by choice.  I have no real idea who he is or what he has done.  Most of us don't.  Our source of information is the media, for better or worse.  But on Thursday, someone sent me an op-ed Mr. Biden wrote for USA Today.  It began with, "Over four years ago, I chose life over the slow strangle-death of addiction, which in my case consisted each day of a bottle of vodka and as many hits on a crack pipe as possible.  I am prouder of that choice and of my recovery than anything I've ever done." (emphasis added)

He continues with the fact that 20 million Americans suffer from substance use disorder and that most families are impacted in some way by addiction.  His statistics, of course, only reflect families suffering from addiction to an addictive substance.  What about addiction to things like shopping, social media, or something we actually have to use everyday…food?  The list of things we can become addicted to is endless.  While the physical aspect of some addictions are not as damaging as alcohol or drugs, their consequences, such as financial or emotional, are just as harmful. 

The op-ed discusses how hard it is for anyone suffering from an addiction to decide to change their lives.   That decision is made even harder when we see how publicly shamed people are for their "weakness" and the choices they make while in the grips of addiction.  I find it unfortunate that most people reading his article will somehow see it as self-serving for Mr. Biden and miss the real message.  Addiction impacts us all and recovery should be celebrated, not shamed.  We need to change the stigma of addiction.

First, we need to change the definition of addiction.  Charles Eisenstein states, "any behavior that alleviates pain without healing its source can become addictive."  ANY behavior.  I would expand that to our thoughts as well.  Anything we do to avoid dealing with our own internal pain or frustration or anger.  Yung Pueblo writes, "I was never addicted to one thing, I was addicted to filling a void inside myself with anything other than my own love."  Under either of these definitions, we are all addicted to something.  We ALL have someplace we go to avoid life.  Even is if it is an addiction that may be celebrated by others, like work or exercise, we are all, at some level, trying to escape. 

Escapism.  Addiction is just our way of escaping.  Of alleviating the pain without understanding the source. There is nothing wrong with escaping.  We live in a complicated and often harsh world.  We are overwhelmed by the news and wars, finances and even the monotony of everyday tasks.  We have suffered losses and traumas.   Even joyful events like weddings, changing jobs or having a baby are stressful.  We need a respite from it all.   Escaping becomes addiction, however,  when we never stop running long enough to get to know who WE are and what WE want.  Going inside to figure that out is hard.  Really hard.  For me, however,  it is the gift of my addiction.  Acknowledging that I was running and then stopping long enough to understand why. 

I do not know or understand why we feel the need to judge others for their decisions. Perhaps it is just easier.   It deflects them away from noticing our struggles and makes us somehow feel superior that we don’t have "that" issue.  I do know that people trying to give up addictive substances are most often met with shame.  Yet, all of us are unwilling to openly share our struggles with others for fear of the same thing.  Shame.  What would the world look like if we just assumed that everyone else was struggling the way we are and we approached them with compassion?  The same compassion we all need and crave.  Instead of "othering" people and labeling them as addicts, we see their struggles as our own. 

The simple word, addiction, and the stigma that implied, kept me locked in my struggle for years.  Addiction is universal, but it took recovery for me to understand that aspect.  Like Hunter Biden, perhaps you will see this as my attempt to make everyone else "just like me".  But in truth, we are all far more alike than we are different.  Addiction is just another common human trait we all share.  We can continue the stigma of addiction, or we can accept that, as humans, we all struggle and we all try to escape that struggle in our own way.  Changing the stigma gives us all one less thing to worry about in our day-to-day review of all the ways we may be lacking.  If we acknowledge it, instead of shaming it, perhaps more of us will be willing to stop long enough to understand what we are running from. And with it, be given the opportunity to truly see who we are, what we want, and in what direction we would like to run. 

Eckhart Tolle states, "For what you do to others, you do to yourself."  I have always seen the glass as half-full and maybe asking us to just accept others as they are, and accepting ourselves the same way, is idealistic.  No matter your view, I know from my personal experience with the stigma of addiction, exactly what Hunter Biden closes his article with:

"The effort is worth it.  You are worth it. I am living proof of that." 

Here is the full op-ed if you would like to read. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2023/11/02/hunter-biden-addiction-substance-abuse-not-political-ploy/71332255007/