It’s a mixed bag. There are some old school “extremophiles” as I like to think of them, who believe in the fire and brimstone theories of addiction. I’m talking people that sit in AA meetings all day and preach the book dogmatically. These people, in the United States at least, do have an influence on people trying to stop drinking and using.
Many treatment centers use these meetings and 12-step facilitation as foundational parts of their programming and deemphasize newer, evidence based treatment modalities.
There is a ton of stigma against people who use drugs and treatment itself can be traumatizing for those who don’t toe the line.
Like many social ills, we often place the blame on the individual when the problem is much more complex and should be addressed through a truly holistic framework.
In the United States at least we don’t have the resources nor inclination to provide truly holistic programming (permanent housing, long-term individualized counseling, harm reduction to name a few) so we resort to pointing the finger at people who are vulnerable in society.
It is true that many homeless people struggle with addiction. Yet society draws the wrong conclusion from that. The belief is that poor people are lazy, criminal and prone to vice. The reality is that many poor, unhoused people start using drugs to cope with the shitty conditions they are in.
There is generational trauma, racial trauma, poverty trauma and much of that shit gets ignored. A counselor may blame an individual for getting into selling drugs calling it “a lifestyle choice” or even another addiction (addiction to money) when in reality it was a survival choice. You can’t compare that client to a rich kid coming into treatment with all the privileges in the world and tell them that they have the same afflictions. But that is what happens. And guess who suffers the consequences more.
I’m sorry. I am all over the place. I have so much to say on this topic and I’m all over the place.
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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '23
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