Your Substance Misuse Is NOT A Disease

If you eat too much sugar and do not exercise, you may end up with a disease called Diabetes. The unhealthy eating and lack of exercise are not the disease. Similarly, if you drink large quantities of alcohol over a period of many years, you may end up with a disease called Cirrhosis. The drinking is not the disease.

So how did the American Medical Association, NIDA and so many other prominent organizations reach the conclusion that problematic substance use is a disease? It’s good for business. The treatment- industrial complex thrives on this pseudo-scientific orgy of brain scans which purportedly prove your brain on drugs is diseased.

What other “disease” gets you arrested? So you get caught with some drugs, get arrested, and complete a drug treatment program in lieu of incarceration (SO progressive). After the authorities tell you that you are an immoral criminal, your treatment program tells you that you have a disease. Then you go to AA and find out that only god can save you. Now you are a criminal diseased sinner. Ah, the gifts of recovery.

What have you recovered at this point?

If you’re like me and you do not believe shame, stigma and a sense of powerlessness are hallmarks of recovery, then harm reduction may be a better solution to what ails you. Perhaps you are not a criminal, do not have a spiritual ailment or a disease. Maybe you simply have a powerful and often harmful habitual behaviour, and it will change with or without a $50,000 Big Book.

Harm reduction offers the startling principle that you are the expert on your own life, and that substance misuse is a complex phenomenon that looks different for each person. Furthermore, even within the same person, it may look very different next month or next year than it does today. Your current substance use represents a snapshot in time, influenced by the drugs themselves, the environment in which you live, and your own particular internal landscape.

The common sense in harm reduction might not seem so revolutionary if we were not living in a culture which demonizes pleasure and offers criminal and medical interventions for complex human behaviours.

But since we do live in such a place, thank god for harm reduction.