#it's the moralising and the blaming and argh can we just be a bit more conscious of the language we're using idk

[stressfulsloth]

Hrngh I just. I don't want to argue with people but. Being an addict is not a moral issue. You are not more morally good and pure for never having experienced addiction. You are not inherently bad for being an addict. Like the recovery narrative centres becoming a "better person" or being "redeemed" BUT BEING IN ACTIVE ADDICTION DOES NOT MAKE SOMEONE INHERENTLY A BAD PERSON. You don't need to be redeemed. That kind of dichotomous thinking is detrimental to recovery, setting people up to see relapse as a moral failure, a weakness in character, something they need to repent and self flagellate for. When it's just... not. It's a part of the process.

And even beyond that, if you can't bring yourself to uncouple addiction from morality, you have to see that addiction never happens in a vacuum. To ignore the socioeconomic factors that contribute, the way that addiction and alcoholism intersect frequently with chronic pain, the way that our society is essentially made hostile to people experiencing addiction which then in turn self-perpetuates... it seems needlessly cruel as well as ridiculously individualistic. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps type of mentality. Poverty and chronic pain are significant contributing factors in many cases of long term addiction; it is far more useful to blame power structures that allow people to remain in poverty, their pain untreated, the inequalities and failed safety nets, disregard for vulnerable populations, all amounting to social murder. Choosing instead to place blame and vitriol at the feet of addicts is unhelpful at best and frankly malicious at worst.