Words matter when treating those who are addicted
Interviewing people working through drug addictions, Kara Fletcher quickly saw how the words used to describe them impacted how they saw themselves.
Fletcher, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Regina and director of the institution's Social Policy Research Centre, interviewed 10 people accessing services at an outpatient substance use treatment centre in Saskatoon along with their clinicians.
An overarching theme soon emerged: words matter.
Labels like “addict,” “junkie” or “abuser” — or any phrase that portrays a person as broken or nothing more than their addiction — had a heavy impact on those struggling with an addiction. These words carry the idea that if a person has an addiction or experiences a relapse, they are a failure and it was their fault.
Even the term “clean” to describe a time period free of substances is harmful, Fletcher said, because it implies anyone using drugs is dirty.
“All of that language can be really unhelpful because it kind of paints substance use and addiction as a moral issue as opposed to a legitimate health issue,” she said. “If that's how your substance use is talked about, the impact on your own self-esteem, your own self worth, is huge.”
Two years later, Fletcher hopes to take the lessons learned from that study and encourage people to challenge their own perceptions of addiction. She said the importance of this conversation has only grown as Saskatchewan sees record numbers of drug overdoses.
On Tuesday, Fletcher is giving a virtual presentation titled How We Say It Matters: Rethinking Language Around Substance Use, which she hopes will push people to examine their own biases about addictions.
“Our language matters and we need to think about the language that we're using when talking about substance use,” Fletcher said. “I think we can all kind of make those subtle changes on an individual level and it would have an impact.”
She said each person has a personal responsibility to look at addictions as a health issue and not a moral issue. If people change the conversation around substance use, policy change will follow, Fletcher said.
The presentation will be held via Zoom on Tuesday from noon to 1 p.m., hosted by the U of R's Lifelong Learning Centre as part of its Research with Impact series. It is free and open to everyone, but attendees must register in advance to receive the Zoom link.