Recovery is for Everyone

September is National Recovery Month, a time to uplift those who live with mental illness, alcohol/substance use disorder, and/or addiction, and highlight their stories of recovery.  My hope for this post is to educate and provide practical steps each person can take to contribute to positive outcomes for those struggling with mental illness and addiction.

I want to start with some level-setting definitions and statistics:

• As of 2019, 18.6% of people (61.2 million) in the US lived with a mental illness or substance use disorder  (link). The theme for National Recovery Month 2021 is “Recovery is for Everyone,” which reminds us not only that everyone can recover, but also that everyone benefits from recovery – when nearly 1/5 of us live with these conditions, our collective wellbeing is at stake.
• The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines addiction as: “a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences. People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences. Prevention efforts and treatment approaches for addiction are generally as successful as those for other chronic diseases” (link). This definition helps us understand addiction beyond the narrow scope of alcohol or drug use.
• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAHMSA), the original sponsor of recovery month over 30 years ago, defines recovery as “a process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential” (link). Note that this definition is intentionally open-ended and expansive – recovery as a process differs for every individual, encompasses multiple components, and is often (hopefully) a lifelong endeavor.

What does this topic mean to me personally? In short, it means everything. I have five immediate family members with diagnosed substance use disorder, which significantly impacted all of their lives, and my life. Three of them have been in recovery for many years. Two of them passed away due to health complications related to substance use, despite several years working through recovery processes. I have witnessed great pain in the lives of the people I love. What stood out the most from these experiences, for me, was that nearly all of the suffering I witnessed was unnecessary, for everyone involved.  Having watched firsthand the lives of those who are surviving these diseases and those who did not, I believe that recovery is and should be available to all, as quickly as humanly possible, without suffering or stigma. There are small, practical steps each person can take to make this a future reality:

• Talk about it.

  • Mental illness and addiction thrive in silence and shadows. If we want people to recover, we have to provide an environment for all where we can talk about these conditions openly, without stigma. The largest recovery program in the world – Alcoholics Anonymous – has anonymity as a foundational principle, primarily to protect its members from outside stigma. We often see celebrities and those with cultural capital and power able to be open about mental illness and addiction, but those without that same power might lose their careers or lose their children if they were to reveal their situations.

• Choose words that support recovery.

  • Recovery relies upon the concept of change. Historically, words to describe those with mental illness or addiction have been identities (more difficult to change), rather than conditions (which are by nature, changeable). In the past, I might have talked about “the addict,” but I have learned to frame this instead as “the person with addiction” – the same way I would talk about someone with any other disease. 

  • This should go without saying – do not use, and actively discourage in others, words that dehumanize those with mental illness or addiction. Almost all non-medical terms for those with mental illness or addiction have negative connotations and contribute to negative stereotypes, which feed into the shame that keeps those with these conditions from accessing recovery. As an example, think about all the “humorous” terms we have for people who drink alcohol, and how those can be transferred to someone with alcohol addiction – these terms, even when used in jest, are harmful.

• Adopt an empathetic mindset.

  • If you wouldn’t hesitate to vocalize your support to someone battling cancer, you can apply that same support mentality to someone fighting a mental illness or addiction. There is often an impulse to confuse support with endorsement, when thinking about mental illness and addiction – and I would encourage everyone to lean toward compassion. There are entire systems in place to bring immediate, devastating, and often life-long consequences to those with mental illness and addiction. Taking one small opportunity to act, think, and respond with empathy first is an affirmation that we believe individuals are capable and deserving of recovery.

• Question everything.

  • I have personally had over 20 years to dig into and dissect every personal belief I have on the topic of mental health/addiction/recovery. I was a slow learner, and I made many mistakes. When I was presented with the prospect of a dear and beloved family member potentially living on the street, I found myself in a mental crisis. I had to begin to question – how is this ever acceptable? What are the circumstances in our society that would allow this? Why is there no where for her to go? Why is my first response anger toward this person? The more I questioned, the more I found my understanding to be flawed, the more I found the system to be broken. I was not able to affect any change, even in my own feelings, until I let myself question everything.

Contributed by Brittney Fraser, project analyst on the Project Management team at Verity Credit Union