Hello, everyone, and welcome to this month's HEART Bunch Video.
We are so excited today to be talking with you about how
to avoid using stigmatizing language,
particularly in recovery and for people with substance use
disorder.
Really, what we want to communicate today
is that stigmatizing language can hinder people
from getting the treatment and going into recovery that they
might need for their substance use
disorder and their mental health treatment,
so we want to give you some ways to rephrase different terms
and why this is so important as a concept.
And we can start to think about how people are strong
and enable them to do the things that they need
to do for their treatment and recovery
instead of using words that might get in the way of that
or hinder them or label them as weak
or something that we don't intentionally
mean to say sometimes.
Stigmatizing language can also negatively influence
how health care providers view people, how other people view
people going through treatment.
So we want to be really cautious with our language,
and this is true for people ranging in the education
system, medical providers, family members, because each
of us are an important role on that path to recovery
for individuals.
And we can all lead by example by using
affirmative person-first language,
and that's something that we're going to just start with.
And I'm going to kick us off by talking about how
to use person-first language.
This is a really important skill because instead of calling
the person by their disease--
because we don't call somebody, oh, "that diabetic," right?
Instead, we say, that person has diabetes,
and so we use the person first to say
this person is more than their medical condition
or their disease.
So instead of saying "a substance abuser,"
we would then say, which is a more appropriate term,
"a person with a substance use disorder,"
and that would be much more appropriate because you
can see the person is first.
You also might want to talk about somebody
being diagnosed with a certain condition, right?
Like diabetes example that I gave-- "a person with diabetes"
instead of "that person is suffering from
or a victim of diabetes," which doesn't even
make sense in this context.
But we use that all the time for substance use disorders.
So instead of saying something like that,
replace it with "a person who is diagnosed with alcohol abuse
disorder" or "opioid use disorder" or something
like that, right?
So make sure that you're watching that language.
And you can also just use-- again,
that person who, maybe in the past, somebody
called "a drunk" or "crazy" or some
of those really harmful terms.
You can replace that with "a person with alcohol use
disorder" or "a person who needs treatment or is diagnosed
with depression," right?
So just having that person first can
make a really big difference, and I'm
going to pass it over to Mateja.
Thanks, Ashley.
I'm just going to talk about the use of accurate
labels for a condition.
So I would encourage you to use the word or the term "substance
use disorder" as opposed to using words like "drug
habit" or "drug problem."
Using these words of "habit," "problems" in this context
really and accurately implies that a person
is choosing to use substances or that they can choose to stop.
It also really undermines the seriousness of the disease
and puts blame back on that individual.
So keep in mind, kind of like what Ashley was mentioning,
that substance use disorder is a chronic but treatable disease
that people can recover from, so we should really
be communicating about it in the same way that we would talk
about people with other chronic diseases, such as people
who have been diagnosed with diabetes,
heart disease, or cancer.
So Tim, I'm going to pass it over to you.
Thank you, Mateja.
Yes, I want to talk a little bit about avoiding
using the term "abuse."
Talk about that has been shown to show an association
with negative judgment and punishment.
Some examples of reduced stigmatizing language involving
abuse includes "illicit drug abuse" replaced
with "illicit drug use" or "prescription abuse"
replaced with "prescription misuse" or "use other
than prescribed."
"Drug abuse" can be replaced with "drug misuse"
or "harmful use," "a drug abuser"
replaced with "person with substance use disorder or SUD."
It's not about being sensitive or politically correct.
It's about access to quality treatment and care,
and first-person language helps with that
and makes sure that we take good precautions with those that we
know may need some additional support going
through their treatment or through whatever they
might be going through in their lifetimes.
So changing our language is a crucial component
for reducing stigma to improve the lives and health of people
who use drugs or alcohol or for people with substance use
disorders.
I'm going now turn the time over to Rachel.
Thanks, Tim.
Another tip that I'm going to talk about
is using clinically accurate terminology
like you would for any medical condition, so for example,
using the term "recovery" instead of saying that someone
is "clean" or "reformed."
So for example, you could say that a person is currently
in recovery.
In addition, using terms like "relapse"
connotes all-or-nothing thinking and implies that any substance
use equals a loss of control.
For example, you could say that a person
experienced a recurrence or resumed a given behavior.
I'm going to turn it over for the next tip.
Just like Rachel was saying, just
trying to avoid using the word "relapse"--
it does kind of imply that if a person is using or has used
a substance in the past, that any little bit that they use
again means that it's an all-or-nothing,
means that they're back down that path.
And that's not the case.
So for example, someone who may not drink alcohol anymore--
they might have a drink, and then they
go back to not drinking ever again,
so avoiding something like "relapse" just because it does
connote that all-or-nothing.
So you say something that the person has experienced
a reoccurrence, or "they've resumed a certain behavior"
is a better way to describe what that person is experiencing.
So I'm going to turn the last tip over to Maren.
I'm going to talk about using proper terminology
for treatment and therapy.
So there are some amazing medications
that can treat substance use disorders that
have been developed a lot like insulin treats diabetes,
and so these medications are a valid treatment.
In the past, they've been called sometimes a replacement
therapy, and that implies that this medication
is substituting for the substance that was being used.
And we want to avoid doing that because these
are valid treatments.
For a little while, they were called "medication-assisted
treatment," but recently the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration has recommended replacing that
term with "medications for opioid use disorder."
So the medication-assisted treatment
was called MAT, and that implied that the medication played
a secondary role to some of the other approaches,
whereas when we use medications for opioid use disorder, MOUD,
that's going to reinforce the idea that the medication is
its own form of treatment.
And it's just as valid as any other type of treatment
that would be available.
And so I also want to point out that
just like that recent change from MAT to MOUD,
as we talk about destigmatizing the language,
just points out that's an ongoing process
and that this language changing as we constantly
try to be sensitive and to reinforce the empowering
nature of treatment and recovery for people.
Thanks, Maren.
Awesome.
We hope that this has been helpful for you
all to learn some new phrases and understand that this
is an ongoing process that requires updates as we go
and that we can really advocate for people
and use this language to empower those that need treatment
or support at this time.
Thank you again for being with us today.
Here are some of our contact information
and our extension.usu.edu/heart.
We have some great rack cards there
if you want to see more about stigmatizing-language reduction
as well.
And here are some brief references for your convenience
Thanks, everybody.