How Labels Bring More Stigma and Shame to Addiction

Are wondering if you should call your child an addict or alcoholic?

Would it help you to understand the negative connotation of labels?

For many years I thought labels such as addict or alcoholic to describe someone struggling with substance use were appropriate terms.

Many of us assumed that attaching a label to what our son or daughter was going through was telling it like it was.

Also, those in AA or NA call themselves alcoholics or addicts. It made sense to use the term to describe a family member.

We hoped the seriousness of the problem would be clear. If we called our son or daughter an addict, they would understand the urgency of getting help right away.

Yet, labels are not helpful, and here’s why.

Labels create more stigma and shame when it comes to addiction.

We all have issues that we are working on. It could be a weight issue. We work too much, or we have relationship problems. Any number of things can be problematic at any given time.

Yet, “normal” people challenged with a life issue don’t have the extra burden of being boxed in with a label that creates shame.

Many people want to separate those struggling with a substance use disorder. Adding a label makes it easier to think of those with a drug or alcohol issue as an object rather than as a human being.

According to the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, “The word addict is stigmatizing, reducing a person’s identity down to their struggle with substance use and denies their dignity and humanity.

Labels Are Damaging

In his article, “Never Call Someone an “Alcoholic” or “Addict,” Dr. Adi Jaffe states, “Labels can have a huge impact on someone with an addiction, as they typically come with expectations and can alter not only the person’s performance but also the way other people view and treat them. Labels can be damaging, and now there’s research to support my point.”

“At the University of Pennsylvania, a new study into addiction and labels found that when people use the terms “addict” or “alcoholic,” they are often associated with a strong negative bias. This invokes a negative attitude toward the person rather than the behavior, and these attitudes are hard to shift. In comparison, researchers found that using “person-first” language (for example, “person with an addiction”) resulted in less negative bias.”

One Size Fits All Thinking

Labels can limit people to black and white thinking. It doesn’t allow for the range of recovery possibilities when it comes to recovery.

People may feel that the term addict refers to “those” people. They are different from us. It also could give someone the idea that you have to be struggling with addiction to misuse substances.

According to Practical Recovery’s article, Labels in Addiction and Recovery, “Once you believe that there are two kinds of people and not a spectrum of problems, then you would understandably believe that:

1) if you are an alcoholic or addict, you need to abstain and spend the rest of your life “in recovery” and

2) if you are not, you can do whatever you want with alcohol or other potentially harmful substances without fear of consequences. In reality, there are many ways to change addiction problems, and everyone who uses addictive substances would do well to pay attention to their relationship with them.”

Let’s Encourage Our Kids to Change

The bottom line is that we want our kids to be willing to go to treatment or seek another form of help.

If your child feels that he has to have a label to change, they will be less interested. Labels such as addicts or alcoholics cause stigma and shame. Being labeled may be enough to discourage your child from being willing to seek help.

John Kelly, Harvard Medical School, states, “This goes beyond political correctness. It’s not just a matter of being nice. What we now know is that actual exposure to these specific terms induces this implicit cognitive bias. If you really want to solve the problem, you want to remove any barriers and obstacles.”

When you label your son or daughter, it doesn’t help your child feel better about themselves. It does not encourage change. And isn’t that the point of what we are trying to do as parents?

A way to judge if you are using an appropriate term is to ask yourself, “Is this a term that I would use for another medical condition?’ If the answer is ‘no,’ then don’t use it.” For example, you wouldn’t call a person with diabetes using the term as the only way to describe them. Yet, we seem to do that with people struggling with substance use.

There is so much more to each person who has found themselves dependent on alcohol or drugs. This is a big problem, but this is not the whole person.

To learn more, here are four other articles around why labels are harmful:

Let’s allow our kids the opportunity to avoid being labeled. Instead, please encourage them to realize that they are whole, competent people.

Without substance use holding them back, your child can be the person they were meant to be in life.