Shameless (Part 4 the done-part)

I keep trying to write a final part to this series on addiction.  Keep trying to come up with some solutions.  I know what I know...what I have already shared....but other than sharing it, I am not sure what else I can do to change it. Here are the highlights so far, for those of you who only like to read part four of things.  I get that.

1. We have a weird relationship with addiction and probably need to check ourselves from time to time when we are running our mouths about "addicts".  

2. I know addiction is a disease and not in a quasi-philosophical way of knowing, I know it in a sciencey way, like with proof and research and diagrams.  

3.I know that even those of us who believe addiction is a disease don't always treat people with the disease of addiction the same way we would treat someone with cancer or the flu.  No one stops by with casserole when a family member relapses.

4. I know that it will take longer than my lifetime to change the policies and perspectives that need to be changed about addiction and I know that this is not because it is a hard concept.  We accept that things are diseases and treat them with compassion all of the time.....but we don't with addiction and that is because of the other thing I know....I know about shame.

Sometimes I wonder if shame is the real problem and addiction is simply the resulting disease.  Like how no one really dies of AIDS.....they die of AIDS-related pneumonia or AIDS-related lymphoma but not actually AIDS.  I think a lot of people are addicts because they got shame somewhere along the way and the resulting disease is alcoholism....or meth-addiction....opiates, etc.  And the problem with shame and addiction is that they feed off of each other and our systems, our policies, even our language, add to this shame which then feeds the addiction.  We want addicts to pay.  We want to hold them up by their hair in front of a mirror and force them to look in it...and we want them to see something disgusting.  

I guess it is because we want people to "get it"....we get tired and frustrated.  Addiction, like any other disease, affects everyone it touches, not just the person afflicted, so we get resentful and indignant, and since we don't really have the same level of respect for addiction as we do other diseases, we don't try and hide our unhappiness....our judgement.  We are embarrassed by addiction, we keep it hidden, anonymous, it is a secret....because we are ashamed or scared which is simply one of shame's symptoms.  Shame is a lot like cancer....it just feeds and grows and eventually destroys the life it has found to live in.  

So when I think about addiction and ask: How do we change?  Where do we go from here? I think maybe the answer is: The opposite direction of where we are.  We come away from shame.  Where we feel anger, we soften.  Where we feel judgement, we open our minds.  We change our reflection from disappointment to understanding.  We start there not because people shouldn't be held accountable, not because we are OK with people doing whatever they want without consequences, but because we finally understand that people won't ask for help if they are afraid, if they are suffering from shame.....if all we can offer them is more shame. We make addiction easier to talk about and get help for.  We own our addiction like we own our cholesterol score.  We remove the sensation and remove the shame and we go about the business of helping people heal. We understand that some people will get well and some people won't.  We accept that some people have the disease and it is terminal, while others will find remission and we take the morality and the shame out of all of it.

We have an ice-bucket addiction challenge! But an imaginary one! Instead of ice, we pour compassion and it looks like this:  In your life is someone with addiction, or there will be one, either in passing or in the mirror, a family member or your weird neighbor...whatever. When you interact with this person or think about this person, re-form their addiction as if it were a different disease.  Your drunk Uncle?  Consider him as you would if he had unmanaged diabetes....your cracked out neighbor?  Terminal Cancer.  Just see.  See if anything changes. The words you use about them...the things you say to them...how willing you are to help them, etc.  My guess is that everybody's humanness will grow, rather than their shame. And they will do it again. Then again. 

And maybe, just maybe, that is how we change.

The End.