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Humanizing Addiction
_Our Work - A Synthesis_
In our work, we've conducted a handful of primary research working towards the humanization of addiction.
Our group has conducted four interviews with people from diverse backgrounds related to our topic. Furthermore, we've conducted a survey to more generally get a gauge of how Americans view and think about this issue. On this page, we'll synthesize those findings and
connect you to our full research.
_Interview 1: A Good Friend with Addiction_
As someone who has spent the past 35 years supporting a friend battling alcoholism, Sean has agreed to share his experiences with us in order to shed light on how addiction can change a person. This is his story.
Sean has known Mike since he was five years old. They grew up together and have been lifelong best friends. Sean knows Mike better than just about anyone, which makes him qualified to assess Mike’s character changes as a result of his battle with addiction. The story starts when Sean and Mike were about 15 and began experimenting with alcohol. Sean immediately noticed that Mike’s drinking habits were different when Mike would not stop drinking late into the night. Normally, after people reached a “buzz” they would get tired. Mike, on the other hand, would actually become more alert. The alcohol acted like a stimulant and he became more aware and active.
The binge drinking was unorthodox for such a young person, but it didn’t become a problem until after college. Sean was seeing Mike less as they grew up, but through infrequent visits and mutual friends he learned that Mike’s drinking had started to expand outside of social situations. On a regular work day, Mike would pick up a case of beer and drink on the way to work. He’d booze cruise at lunch, and then stop to toss his empties out on the way home. His world got turned upside down when he was given a DWI, and Sean thought that it would be the kick in behind Mike needed. Sean was right, at least for a while. Mike went to Alcoholics Anonymous and began biking 15 miles to work each day while his license was suspended. He stayed sober for about 15 years, heavily leaning on the support of Sean, his wife, and was motivated by his young kids.
Unfortunately, his sobriety didn’t last forever. About three years ago, Mike began drinking again. He was trying to keep the drinking a secret from his wife, but she gave him an ultimatum after finding him asleep at the wheel in their garage, engine on, car littered with crushed beer cans. She told him he had to go to rehab or she’d file for divorce. Sean drove him to a 28 day in-patient rehab center a few days later and Mike checked himself in. After the rehab stint and another relapse, his wife kicked him out of the house, as she sees him as a potential danger to their kids. He now resides in a full-time sober living facility, something Sean is a big fan of.
Given all of the relapses, Sean does not believe that 28-day rehab possesses enough time to treat the mental illness associated with addiction. Looking back on their childhoods, Sean realized that Mike has pretty serious anxiety and depression, and believes that he will not be able to stay sober permanently until these illnesses are addressed. He’s a proponent of the sober living facility because of their one-strike system. You have to sleep there each night and can never bring alcohol in. Mike needs to be kept on a short leash and this facility does that well.
Our interview with Sean was interesting because of how well he seemed to understand Mike as a person. He knew the complexities and issues Mike has dealt with, yet didn’t make excuses. He blamed Mike for not holding himself accountable, yet also blamed himself at times for drinking with Mike when he knew he was supposed to be sober. This interview took a closer look at the complexities associated with addiction and just how much it can affect both a user and their supporters.
_Interview 2: A Partner with Addiction_
As someone who spent five years of her life married to a drug addict, Andrea has agreed to share her experiences in order to shed some light on the struggles of addiction, not only for the addict, but for friends and family as well. Andrea starts off by explaining why she believes her ex-husband started using drugs in the first place. While it is unclear which factors pushed him towards addiction, she believes his family trauma, including growing up with mentally disabled parents and losing them at a young age, had a big role in his struggle with addiction.
As his partner, Andrea tried to support him and stick by his side through his battle with addiction, but she claimed his recurrent relapses put her and her children in danger, so there was only so much she could do for him while still protecting her family. She explains how she encouraged him to get help, such as attending NA meetings or going to rehab. It was unclear whether he took her advice, but she does tell us that he sought help out on his own and attended a local NA group faithfully for a few weeks before he relapsed again. These relapses, according to Andrea, were in part because of her past partner’s struggle to stay away from friends who encouraged his addictive and dangerous behavior.
When asked about incarceration as a result of drug abuse, Andrea informed us that her ex-husband had been to prison or jail nine times in the past, with sentences varying between only a few weeks to two years. She also explained, as a result of incarceration, her past partner “changed for about six months after each incarceration, then began the same habits.” After years of this repeated process, Andrea claims that no one form of treatment helped him the most.
As for how Andrea’s past partner’s drug addiction changed her, she shares that her trust is now fragile and has a hard time seeing the truth in conversations with men who are close to her. Because she struggled in a marriage with a drug addict for years, she always looks for discrepancies, even in healthy relationships.
Finally, we asked Andrea what she thought about society's current perception of drug use, versus how she wants it to look. She explains how she believes society equates drug use with poor and uneducated people and that their families are the same way. She wants society to realize that drug addiction can affect any social class, educated and uneducated. As she is well aware of, she also wants people to understand that a drug user’s family may be entirely unaware of the addiction.
_Interview 3: A Policymaker's Perspective_
To give some important insight on how drug addiction, criminalization, and politics are all connected, an anonymous political student leader agreed to answer a few big questions. To start off, this individual explains their party affiliation and what led them to that specific alignment. While they vote Democrat, they consider themselves a democratic socialist. This is partly because of their upbringing with a progressive guardian where they lived on a college campus. They talk about having a strong sense of justice from a young age and mentions how they have always felt the need to support those who stand up for the vulnerable.
Moving on to the topic of decriminalization, this political leader eagerly explains their stance on why they believe drugs should be decriminalized. To quote their beliefs, “those that abuse drugs are not criminals; they are individuals that need help.” They also talk about how the criminal justice system tends to profit off of vulnerable people, which they know because of their own family members who have suffered due to various forms of addiction. In the best interest of all Americans, they believe the government should not make drugs legal, but rather decriminalize them so that those addicted to more dangerous types of drugs can get the mental healthcare they need. They add that the money currently invested in police forces to combat drug use should instead “be re-allocated to social programs and intensive mental healthcare for those suffering from addiction.”
As for policy, past and present, they talk about how American drug policy is rooted in racism. According to the student political leader, “drugs became associated with minority groups, like Mexican and Chinese individuals, and therefore, the war on drugs was used as a way to deliberately target and harm these groups.” Furthermore, they believe American drug policy has definitely delayed equity due to leaders wanting to keep wealthy white Americans at the top of society.
Finally, they once again address the question of whether addiction should be treated as a criminal issue or a medical issue. They full heartedly believe addiction is a medical issue and acknowledges that criminalizing drug abuse “dehumanizes people and strips them of their dignity.” They believe incarceration will not rehabilitate drug abusers at all, which is why they call for solutions that will solve the internal conflict within most drug users.
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_Interview 4: Medical Professional's Perspective_
To give some insight on America’s healthcare system, we interviewed an IU healthcare professional who works specifically with drug abuse and rehabilitation. Dr. Barker educated us on the current state of drug abuse in America, and this is her story.
This interview with Dr. Barker began with asking her about what she believed the current American perception of drug abuse looked like. She said that as someone who works with recovering drug addicts, she has the experience to look beyond the current stigma, but that the general American perception of drug abuse is quite negative. Dr: Barker stated “I truthfully believe that most people who are living in modern day America perceive individuals who struggle with drug addiction in a similar way, bums, scary, homeless, or even useless.” Her view of the current perceptions is almost identical to that associated with our dominant narrative, which further cements how prevalent it is.
Next, we asked Dr. Barker about drug abuse and its association with criminality. When asked: “Do you believe that your patients would prefer America addressed their drug usage and addiction in other ways than criminalization/addiction? Dr. Barker responded with: “I think that every single individual who struggles with drug abuse in America would greatly benefit from society looking at their addiction or so called abuse as an illness.” She also noted that patients in recovery who have previously been incarcerated have a much more difficult time recovering. She mentioned that because of the mental illness that comes with addiction, a person who has entered rehab at their family’s discretion is going to have an easier time than someone who is just out of jail because they aren’t already mentally exhausted, they have less baggage to work through. Prison can do significant damage to a person’s mental well-being, and Dr. Barker has seen this fact first hand.
Our final question was: “After working with patients who struggle with drug abuse for years, are there any specific things you believe society could change to help motivate change in these individuals?”, Dr. Barker replied: “ I really believe that if society were to perceive the issue of drug abuse and individuals who struggle with drug addiction in a more humane way, they are humans who are struggling with and illness referred to as addiction. This illness can be healed, and the healing process clearly is not aided by placing the individual in jail.”
Dr. Barker and her insights really helped us better understand the general perception of drug use and addiction within the United States. People tend to view those who struggle with addiction as below them. Dr. Barker, on the other hand, has spent years upon years assisting recovering users. She knows them better than anyone, and to hear her advocate for her patients as the exceptional human beings they are, was powerful.
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In our survey-based research, we asked the participants’ name, majority, and political position. from the results, we notice that almost half of people think professional help like rehab is the most helpful way to help addictive. Also, more than half of people think criminalization is the worst way to deal with drug use. From our research results, we can see that although most people believe that criminalize drug users is an incorrect choice, many people still do not know how to treat drug abusers reasonably. Therefore, education about drugs is very important. People should know clearly about the harm that drug addiction will bring to themselves and their families.
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_Survey - Population Perspective_
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