Questioning the 'Substance Abuse' Label
Posted on November 13, 2020
by Thaddeus Camlin, PsyD
Abuse conjures amongst the most abhorrent of associations. People who are abused often turn to substances because they provide reliable and effective short-term relief from intrusive and disruptive trauma symptoms like nightmares, flashbacks, and panic attacks. From that perspective, referring to people who were abused as ‘substances abusers’ doesn’t make much sense. Thus, some leaders in the field of addiction medicine and treatment are calling on national drug institutions like NIDA and NIAAA to remove the ‘substance abuse’ label from the addiction lexicon. We shall see if the call for change is answered.
Addiction language doublethink is familiar territory for us at Practical Recovery. Examples of hypocrisy abound when the common vernacular of ...
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