Pubdate: Fri, 28 Dec 2012
Source: Petoskey News-Review (MI)
Copyright: 2012 Petoskey News-Review
Contact: http://www.petoskeynews.net/forms/lettertotheeditor.html
Website: http://www.petoskeynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4115
Author: Maura Casey
Note: Maura Casey of Franklin is a former editorial writer for the
New York Times. She is a free-lance editorial writer for The Courant.

ANONYMITY OF ADDICTION HURTS MORE THAN IT HELPS

Our Silence Has Allowed Others To Define Us

I often wished that state legislators who knew the most about
addiction would band together and speak out as one during budget
debates. Who better to advocate for treatment and chip away at public
denial than the recovering alcoholics I knew who were also members of
the General Assembly?

Yet the answer was as close as my nearest mirror. Despite being a
journalist and writing opinion for years, I was no more likely to
publish a column about my own 20-plus years' recovery from alcoholism
than lawmakers were prepared to out themselves on the floor of the
legislature.

Whether springing from shame or shyness, my decision not to write
about my addiction was a mistake. The same goes for most of my 20
million-plus fellow citizens who are in sustained recovery from addiction.

Besides our passivity, one barrier to public understanding may lie in
the terms we use. "When people hear that a person is in 'recovery,'
they think someone is struggling with addiction, or still using," when
such is not the case, said Patricia A. Taylor, executive director of
the grass-roots nonprofit Faces and Voices of Recovery.

Her organization is onto something. Although recovering people lead
utterly normal lives, our silence has allowed others to define us as
either living under a bridge or teetering on the verge of relapse.

Worse, our lack of advocacy has enabled a treatment system to take
shape that has, too often, criminalized addiction instead of treating
it as a public health issue - one that estimates say costs the U.S.
more than $500 billion annually.

Greg Williams, 29, of Danbury makes a convincing case for the need to
speak out in the eight-minute trailer of his riveting documentary on
the recovery movement, "The Anonymous People." Williams hasn't used
drugs or alcohol since 2001.

"Public perception continues to swim upstream against science," he
says. Even though addiction is a disease, "society continues to tell
me the lie that at age 15, with a developing brain, and genetic
predisposition, I somehow made a rational choice to become addicted."

Addiction is hardly the first illness to carry a stigma. In recent
years, AIDS and cancer did, too. Treatment improved markedly when
patients spoke out. The comparison is particularly apt to William L.
White, who is a cancer survivor and author of the superb book,
"Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery
in America."

"Talk to anyone who has undergone cancer treatment. From the
beginning, you are told you will need regular lab tests and
appointments for five years and are told what you can do to help your
recovery," White said. "Yet in addiction, we give people a 30-day
treatment, give them a hug and tell them to have a good life. It's
like giving a patient an inadequate dose of antibiotics, then blaming
them when the infection comes back." What other illness do we approach
this way?

When people do recover, White said, a fundamental misunderstanding of
the anonymous traditions of programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and
Narcotics Anonymous keep many from sharing their stories. The point of
these traditions are not to inhibit people from speaking publicly
about their recovery, but for people to refrain from identifying
themselves as AA or NA members to shield the organizations from
controversy - and the occasional relapse of leaders.

Yet America has a centuries-long tradition here. In the 1730s, more
than 200 years before the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, American
Indian tribes established abstinence-based recovery circles, White
said. Recovery in America should be celebrated, not hidden.

Williams hopes his documentary will help do that. He's aiming to
complete it by April. And although he's convinced me, shedding
anonymity might not be the right decision for every recovering person.
"It's not about telling everyone to do it," he said. "If it's right
for you, though, maybe you should join us and change the course of
history."

Maura Casey of Franklin is a former editorial writer for the New York
Times. She is a free-lance editorial writer for The Courant.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D