Social stigma is of the biggest problem

[hazephase]

One of the biggest problem that stops a person form taking treatment for a addiction is social stigma . Most of the people do not see it as a treatable illness . Many lives are lost to addictions every year .

[moja]

The social stigma can be very painful. Addiction is a dis-ease, much like cancer. It is progressive and deadly just like a cancer. And just like cancer, it is treatable - by working a program of recovery, including participation in a 12-step fellowship, we can arrest its development and live a life worth living.

[LW75]

There is a stigma because people who don't get involved with drugs see a huge difference in the quality of their life as compared to the quality of life of a drug user.

Drug users have their times of being in a stupor or aggressive or whatever their drug makes them be. They're dealing with drug dealers, out of control, spending money on drugs, and generally (often) living among people who also live the druggie lifestyle. Addicts lie to their families. Sometimes they can't wait to leave Thanksgiving dinner so they can go get rid of their anxiousness by taking something. They grow distance from the healthy family members and sometimes feel happiest when they're with "their own kind" in some hell hole somewhere, high.

Most people understand how drug addiction becomes a physiological problem that is extremely difficult to overcome. What many people believe, though, is that this isn't like cancer (which just comes on people through no fault of their own). Drug addiction starts with the choice to take a chance and use a drug.
Family members of drug addicts can love the addict, pray that he'll get better, and understand how difficult it is for him. Still, if they think of their own struggles with having an addict in their life they can resent the fact that the drug addict brought all this into their lives and made them live so afraid that their loved one will accidentally overdose.

I think the stigma isn't so much with the person who has an addiction. It is more related to the lifestyle that addiction surrounds the person with and all the awful stuff that person brings to the people who love him. People who are living with, dealing with, drug addicts have come complex issues that drug addicts often don't even realize they have to deal with. People with loved ones who are addicts know its "about the addict" and don't want to make it "about them". Still, they have their own issues that must be worked out as a result of having an addicted loved one.

[jr_sci]

Whatever may be the disease, everthing disease is curable. Let it be cancer or its AIDS or as small as addiction. We can do it. Come on.