{"id":14,"date":"2013-11-21T23:59:52","date_gmt":"2013-11-21T23:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nashvillerecovers.org\/wordpress\/?p=14"},"modified":"2013-11-21T23:59:52","modified_gmt":"2013-11-21T23:59:52","slug":"hi-im-brad-and-im-uh-a-person-with-substance-use-disorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/2013\/11\/21\/hi-im-brad-and-im-uh-a-person-with-substance-use-disorder\/","title":{"rendered":"Hi, I\u2019m Brad, and I\u2019m, uh, a person with substance use disorder?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even folks in recovery are not immune to conversations about political correctness.<\/p>\n

A bunch of us are in a state training this week, and we\u2019re being encouraged to stop calling ourselves \u201calcoholics\u201d and \u201caddicts.\u201d Too much stigma attached to those words. So what do we call ourselves?<\/p>\n

\u201cA person with substance use disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do what? That\u2019s kinda weird, isn\u2019t it? \u201cSubstance use disorder.\u201d Sounds like I\u2019m using my substances incorrectly. \u201cNo, no,\u00a0that\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0not how you snort cocaine!\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, almost anything can be a substance. Like, say, glue. So does a little kid who smears glue in his sister\u2019s hair \u201ca person with substance use disorder\u201d? I digress.<\/p>\n

\"drunk<\/a>I\u2019ll concede that the words \u201caddict\u201d and \u201calcoholic\u201d are loaded. Before I got into recovery, I pictured a dirty guy under a bridge or, say, Kurt Cobain on a bad night.<\/p>\n

Or, say, this dude on the left.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit that most folks probably don\u2019t probably think of the thousands of people in recovery in Nashville, the miracles, who are living productive, service-oriented lives.<\/p>\n

But those labels \u2014 \u201caddict\u201d and \u201calcoholic\u201d \u2014 are what most of us were taught to use when we got into recovery. And we feel attached because we feel great affection for that time in our lives when we finally surrendered to doing something different.<\/p>\n

Well, let\u2019s ask some fellow folks in recovery about identifying as \u201ca person with substance use disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate that (expletive) label,\u201d said Jay T., a former Navy pilot from Memphis. \u201cI\u2019m an (expletive) alcoholic. We\u2019ve gotta take responsibility for who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks for sharing, Jay.<\/p>\n

Others share the sentiment, but they might be a little more open minded about what\u2019s behind the suggested change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand the motivation,\u201d says Drew D., a recovering addict from Newbern, Tenn., with 31 years clean. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an effective strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a newcomer, it\u2019s important to keep it simple,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Ashley D., a recovery addict from Jackson, Tenn., with five years clean, also shuns the new suggested identification.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably because it\u2019s new and I don\u2019t like change,\u201d she explains. \u201cI\u2019m good with being an addict because it made me what I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what Ashley is today is a clean, usually happy single mom who has found a career in helping her fellow addicts.<\/p>\n

I think Ashley\u2019s onto something here: It\u2019s probably the new part that has many of shying away from identifying as \u201ca person with substance use disorder.\u201d After all, think of what we used to call African-Americans or people with disabilities. Change never comes quickly.<\/p>\n

Still, \u201ca person with substance use disorder\u201d is, well, tragically unhip. Thanks so much for all you do, state Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. But can we at least come up with something cooler?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even folks in recovery are not immune to conversations about political correctness. A bunch of us are in a state training this week, and we\u2019re being encouraged to stop calling ourselves \u201calcoholics\u201d and \u201caddicts.\u201d Too much stigma attached to those words. So what do we call ourselves? \u201cA person with substance use disorder.\u201d Do what? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}