I recently read an editorial in The Sun about the debacle in Anne Arundel County with the medical marijuana (“Reefer madness in Arundel,” Sept. 24) and then a letter to the editor from Mike Gimbel (“Reflections on 43 years clean and sober,” Sept. 25).
They both used language such as “clean,” “an addict” and “addicts.” These words are degrading to someone with a substance use disorder diagnosis and even more so to those with a co-occurring mental illness. Most people who struggle with an addictive disorder fail to seek treatment, in part because of their concern that they will be labeled an “addict” and that the stigma will stick.
These are chronic brain diseases, not moral failings. Stigma is a huge component for those seeking recovery and is one of the single largest contributors to the mortality rate. When a reference is made to a diabetic who has a high or low blood sugar, you don’t hear the description as clean or dirty. When someone has cancer and then goes into remission, it’s not described as though they were once dirty and now they are clean. In the medical profession when we request a urine or blood screening and it comes back either negative or positive, it has nothing to do with whether the person is good or bad, clean or dirty but only that the person is ill and needs to get well.
Please help to fight this stigma by watching your language.
Patricia Bayly Miedusiewski, Monkton
