May is mental health awareness month. Drug Free Montgomery County wants to highlight this awareness month and how we as a community can help those who are struggling with mental health issues, including substance use disorder. This observance for the month of May was developed in 1949 and was created to offer support, extend education to the public, advocate, and work to eradicate stigma around Mental Health. Stigma is the negative or unfair belief of a group of people or circumstance from society. Stigma about substance use and alcohol use disorders is very prevalent and can be a challenge for those seeking recovery. Stigma reduction, our goal, is the effort to reduce or eradicate the negative beliefs and views and allow us to see people in recovery as needing our support, not our judgement.
Montgomery County is no exception to the existence of stigma surrounding substance and alcohol use disorder. It is easy to classify those suffering with substance and alcohol use disorder as weak, uncaring, “bad” people who will not recover, and yet nothing could be further from the truth. Those suffering with this disorder are our parents, siblings, friends, co-workers and relatives, people that we and others love and want to see them recover. They are not making healthy decisions for themselves, but substance and alcohol use are a disease and they need treatment to help them enter and stay in recovery. This support does not mean we condone or accept their behavior, but that we understand they have a disease that needs treatment.
One of the biggest stigmas surrounding substance and alcohol use is that it only impacts a certain group of individuals. It is not a certain class of people, but cuts across socioeconomic lines, race and ethnicity, and education levels. One way we, as a community can work to reduce stigma is as simple as working on language. Instead of using words such as “addicts” or “user”, use words such as “in recovery” or “person with substance use disorder”.
Although there is a great deal of controversy around Medication Assisted Treatment for substance/alcohol use disorder, like any complex problem there is not just one intervention or treatment that works for all individuals with substance/alcohol use disorder. MAT can save many lives each year and significantly reduces overdoses. MAT programs offer medication to aid those entering into recovery. These medications can include methadone, naltrexone, buprenorphine, etc. With these medications, individuals are safely able to enter into recovery with professionals who are able to prescribe and monitor these medications along with offering treatment to individuals, such as therapy and intensive outpatient programs.
Seeking treatment is important to change and save lives of individuals that are suffering from substance and alcohol use disorder. However, the individuals who are suffering with substance and alcohol use disorders often feel shame about their disorder and are hesitant to admit they have an issue and seek treatment, another barrier to recovery. People can and do recover, more than 20 million people nationwide have recovered and continue in recovery. This shows that recovery is possible and that if we come together as a community, we could reduce stigma surrounding substance use disorder and alcohol use disorder, encouraging more individuals to seek treatment.
Recovery is not just one event where an individual decides to be drug and alcohol free, it is a process that is on-going. Because of this, individuals do sometimes relapse and have to start over again, but this is a part of the process. Because it is a disease, it is not cured but treated and supported like other chronic diseases.
As always, many resources can be found on the Drug Free Montgomery County’s website at drugfreemoco.org. For further questions, reach out to Diamond Justus at diamond@mcysb.org. Drug Free Montgomery County is a program of the Youth Service Bureau. The YSB is a United Way in Montgomery County partner agency and is also supported by the Montgomery County Community Foundation.
