Narcotics Anonymous (NA) Survey

drewdha · Newbie

Narcotics Anonymous (NA) Survey

LeeU · Guru

Thanks for this wonderful opportunity. I too earned a Master's in the treatment of addiction, worked in the field for over 20 years, and have 27 years clean/sober this month. It is only to the good that clinicians (and administrators who control policy/program design/funding) have the best info from us that is possible. I hope you don't get any flak for making this request...I have seen that happen, basically due to people misunderstanding the 10th tradition. We are absolutely free, as individuals, to share our ESH in matters such as this.

LeeU · Guru

Don't care for the survey wording "I am an addict". That leaves no room for the person who says "I am not my disease...I am a person with a health problem, of addiction."

In responding to the survey, I know I am (was-could be again) a raging "slimy dope fiend", and "should" click on "yes", but I am not using or promoting stigmatizing lingo these days. I am not cured, I am in remission, I can relapse, but today, with double-digit "clean-time" and a restoration to a decent life, I no longer call myself "an addict". Because I am so many things beyond the disease, and it no longer DEFINES me...it is something I HAVE, not something I AM. That is why we often say we are not bad people trying to get good, we are sick people trying to get well.

As someone who will be going into the field, you are in a great position to leave the old labels behind and model more enlightened, and correct, terminology that supports recognizing substance use disorders as a health condition and "addicts" as people with that health condition.

Addiction is a health condition that should be recognized and treated in an integrated manner, as with other health conditions, covered with parity in insurance policies, and treated with the same concern, compassion, respect, funding, and state-of-the art practices as any other chronic disease.

The negative emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and behavioral aspects of the disorder have created a social/political/economic/cultural environment in which it has become acceptable for us to be morally judged, disparaged, hated, dismissed, pitied etc. etc. Good treatment protocols are known and available, but are not often provided in publicly-funded programs. Why not? Could it be more about discrimination than funding? Yeah-it could.

Addiction is not an "acceptable" disease, like cancer..it is an "unacceptable" disease, like HIV. Therefor, calling us junkies, dope fiends, addicts, crack whores, tweakers, etc. etc. is not only OK, it is something we willingly do to ourselves. We bought the lie!! For some, we even think it's a perverse kind of status! Go figure.

Treatment professionals (and students) are in a great position to educate the public, health care stakeholders, medical professionals, insurance policy makers etc. about appropriate approaches to the treatment of addiction and the elements of recovery and relapse prevention, using non-stigmatizing, health-oriented terminology.

It may not really matter so much to us, as self-defined, self-labeled addicts, but it does matter to making progress in the process of achieving parity and social justice in our health care system. Equitable treatment saves lives and, more often than not these days, enables people with addictions to be introduced to NA.

-- Edited by LeeU on Saturday 17th of April 2010 01:23:11 PM

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