Signing off on Stigma: The Power of Letting go of Biases

Run. Not a word, but a feeling that instinctively floods my mind every time I smell the smoke, see the white powder, taste the irrational fear. To run doesn’t have to be fast or slow, just somewhere far away from the “criminality” of drugs. The question is, how many lives have been lost for every time I ran with that fearful mindset?

According to SF.gov, 192 people in the Bay Area died from unintentional opioid overdose in the first three months of this year.

One hundred and ninety two. A number. That’s the way I would’ve seen this data three years ago, simply a statistic.

But what happens when that’s the way we see the death toll? Not a matter of each digit equating to a life, but only a number? 

I’ve been told by many people in my life to “stay away” from the drugs, the substances, and most importantly to choose friends who are clean. I’ve stayed so far away from the drug environment that suddenly every person I’ve known who may have been abusing substances has been pushed out of my life.

Every breath I sucked in right before walking into the girls bathroom at school, preparing for the smell of a vape to enter my nostrils was a silent bias that I never exhaled. 

For years, I haven’t been able to confront the inner stigma that fueled the fear and anger in my chest morphing into a lump of anxiety that I tried to shove down each time I saw a bottle of alcohol, a syringe, a cigarette. 

Don’t be an addict, don’t be an addict…

Over the past three years, the existence of deaths by overdose hasn’t changed but my perspective has. Every person that I pushed out of my life for abusing substances was a struggle against addiction that didn’t get resolved. 

Stigma was a parasite that engraved bias not only in my mind, but into the mindset of society. How many substance abuse prevention programs had failed because the users lacked support? 

According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention’s Stigma Reduction, “In 2022, 54.6 million people needed substance use treatment in the past year, but 13.1 million received treatment in the past year.”

How can an environment fueled by fear of addiction help those who are seeking to get help? The side eye, the hard swallow, the set lips reflect our unspoken opinions towards people undergoing silent battles that end up staying silent because guilt is not a solution.

When the use of marijuana and alcohol turns into fentanyl and heroin, is it the person or is it society?

Maybe the answer does not have a concrete solution but rather an opportunity for effort. 

Change perspective. Change the irrational fear into rational thought that people who haven’t experienced addiction can still contribute to helping those that have.

To all the parents and friends of people struggling with addiction, vulnerability can be powerful when it comes to expressing the underlying anxieties. To cultivate a supportive environment where we view the silent battles of loved ones without judgement is a step towards closing the distance that has been created between ourselves and those dear to us. 

Letting go of stigma and biases is a process. It’s a process that required me to stop running away from the problem and my fear of addiction upon the realization that it’s what contributes to the issue of substance abuse. 

To stop running is to start realizing that there never was a place to run away from this issue, only to confront it by providing support for people who need it.