National Recovery Month

I follow a couple of recovery blogs out there. I was reminded by my fellow recovery bloggers that September is, in fact, national recovery month. Yes, prevention works, yes treatment works, yes, people do recover. Addiction is complex, recovery isn't simple, but with more education, understanding and support, we can all come together and heal a broken system that often turns away the sickest in their greatest time of need when they have the least amount of resources available. 

Over the past year or so, there are a few themes in recovery that have really been in the forefront of discussion. In the recovery community, the issue of anonymity (I did write a previous blog on this) and in the news, everything about the opiate epidemic. I get a little frustrated by both conversations and I would like to take this blog entry to tell you why. Let's take a look at each of these individually because they are really separate issues.

#1 - Anonymity
I did write about this subject not to long ago. I really understand both sides of the argument. For one, there is so much stigma and judgement out there against people who are addicted to drugs. Let's see -- what are the names that people call us on a daily basis: addicts, alcoholics, alkies, lushies, junkies, hobos, tweakers, stoners, crackheads, psychos, nutjobs, wineos, druggies. This list is endless. These are generally some of the nicer ones out there. You should hear what we are called in the medical field - waste of resources, frequent fliers, waste of space. No wonder no one is really excited to stand up and say - "oh yeah, I am addicted!"

On the flip side, we are silent. We have no voice. We have people who advocate for us but they are such a small group. We have little funding to help ourselves. Addiction recovery is starting to get some coverage these days which I am glad to see but we are still light years behind other causes and medical issues. Substance abuse counselors aren't even really considered "real" practitioners most of the time. My present job excluded, my starting salaries at other jobs rivaled entry level jobs out of college in customer service (I have a Masters Degree by the way....). Because our voice is so quiet, the general public is unaware of the 23 million people in recovery and what it took to get there. The general public doesn't understand what an addict is going through. Because the behaviors of addicts can be so frustrating and appalling, most people just want to get rid of us instead of taking the time to understand what help we need to get better. 

Things are going to have to change with the recovery community first I think. We have to strip ourselves of the stigma too. I clearly have no problem talking about the fact that I am in recovery. I adore when people ask questions about my journey and about addiction. I want more people to be willing to get out there and talk about it. I am hoping that with social media and the higher media attention that addiction is getting, that the stigma will begin to recede so we can band together as a community and advocate for the resources that we need to treat this disorder.

#2 Heroin/Opiate Epidemic
Opiates are sure getting a lot of attention out there right now. There are parts of the country where heroin is killing people at unbelievable rates. When I am talking about my issues here, I am in no way saying that heroin is not a problem. The deaths with heroin/opiates are tragic and totally preventable. My beef with this coverage is that people are dying from every other drug as well. People are dying from alcohol every day - car crashes, liver failure, overdoses. People are overdosing on meth causing heart attacks and seizures. People are dying from crack and cocaine overdoses which cause cardiac collapse and strokes. None of these drugs really got anyone's attention, why is that? Well, opiates hit the suburban areas and then addiction became a real thing. All these other drugs like coke, meth and crack were all inner city problems. And alcohol? Well, that's legal. So those people are just dumb.

The deaths with heroin are very tragic and very sudden. However, so are the rest of these deaths. In my book, I don't care what you are addicted to, it all sucks. When the brain is so preoccupied with drugs or alcohol, it is really irrelevant in my book which one it is. I care from a withdrawal perspective which drugs you are using because some withdrawals are deadly, like alcohol. Some withdrawals are going to take longer and be more annoying. I care about that because I want to be able to let you know what you can expect from a treatment standpoint. However, as far as addiction is concerned, a drug is a drug. Please give us funding for treatment for everything, not just for opiates. Where I work, we are seeing a ton more meth addiction and alcohol certainly supersedes everything else. Because we are not seeing mass heroin use, our addictions don't matter as much?

I want our conversation to be about addiction. About chemical dependency. Not about one drug. Not about 1 group of people being affected. Addiction does not care who you are. Money, no money, education, no education. The color of your skin does not matter, you age does not matter, your family does not matter. Anyone can develop an addiction. While some people are more vulnerable to addiction, it can happen to anyone. It is sad to me that it took the opiate epidemic to get addiction on the radar. Heroin has been around for years. Prescription drugs (which are really synthetic forms of heroin) started to increase in the late 90s. Alcohol has been around forever. Meth has been around for a good long time as has cocaine. Drugs tend to be fairly cyclical in nature. Talk to any counselor who has been in the field for 30 years, they can tell you which drugs have come and gone over the years. 

So, for National Recovery Month, I hope that we will not just focus on the heroin/opiate epidemic. I hope that we will focus on chemical dependency and recovery. Recovery is lifelong journey that requires an incredible amount of change. I joke with people saying "recovery is easy, you just have to change everything." As the old saying goes....behind every joke is a bit of truth. So, I give a shout out to all those in recovery this month especially for all the hard work you have done to get into recovery and all the hard work you continue to do to stick with it!