At Driftwood Recovery, we know how important rebuilding a connection to self and others is for healing. Through an attachment-based approach to recovery, you have learned how to foster healthy attachments to the self and others. However, challenges with stigma can disrupt your ability to maintain your recovery. The impact of stigma can erode your resilience and impair your self-perception. We are committed to providing support services and resources through an active alumni program to rebuild those important connections.
Yet, you may question how stigma can disrupt your recovery post-treatment. Although going through treatment is designed to help you build tools to overcome challenges, you are human. There will be challenges you face in recovery that will attempt to erode your resilience, such as stigma.
Stigma, in particular, can make the tools you have learned inadequate. Without support, it can feel impossible to weather the storm of life stressors alone, let alone with stigma as well. Understanding the impact of stigma is vital to building individual tools and a strong support network to thrive in recovery.
What Is Stigma?
In general, stigma is a set of negative attitudes and stereotypes about an individual or group that impairs physical and psychological well-being. However, the impact of stigma is complex in how it exists and shapes society. As the Journal of Evaluation Clinical Practice notes, stigma happens at the axis where interrelated components converge. There are five converging components of stigma:
- Humans distinguish and label differences
- People label and link undesirable characteristics to negative stereotypes through cultural beliefs
- Negatively labeled people are placed in distinct categories to create separation
- Results in othering by categorizing people as “us” and “them”
- Labeled people experience a loss of status and increased discrimination
- Stigma is dependent on social, economic, and political asymmetrical power
- Those in different positions of power can identify differences, construct stereotypes, separate labeled persons into distinct categories, and execute disapproval, rejection, exclusion, and discrimination against labeled persons
The coverage points of stigma overlap and reinforce each other to cause great harm in every domain of life.
Understanding the Impact of Stigma on SUD and Mental Health Disorders
Countless groups experience the impact of stigma, from race and ethnicity to sex and gender identity. However, individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) and mental health disorders often face overlapping stigma that impedes access to resources and services to support recovery. According to “Stigma toward substance use disorders” by Samer El Hayek et al., the impact of stigma from beliefs to language causes countless barriers to treatment, recovery, and reintegration into society:
- Discourages seeking treatment
- Limits access to treatment options
- Impedes access to healthcare, housing, and employment
- Ignores co-occurring challenges
- Mental health disorders
Further, the impact of stigma on mental health disorders that often co-occur with SUD is profound. According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the consequences that result from the three main types of stigma, structural, public, and self, include:
- Structural: Discriminatory laws, policies, and practices negatively impact stigmatized groups
- Prejudice and discrimination in public and private institutions create social, cultural, economic, educational, and political barriers
- Restricted liberties
- Discriminatory practices
- Reduced privacy
- Public/social: Negative stereotypes about a group perceived to have socially undesirable characteristics
- Results in social segregation and diminished self-efficacy
- Loss of financial autonomy
- Restricts opportunities for independence, education, and relationships
- Coercive treatment
- Results in social segregation and diminished self-efficacy
- Self-stigma: You believe the negative stereotypes about yourself
- Negative self-perception further harms your mental health
- Low self-esteem
- Decreases self-efficacy
- Increases embarrassment and shame
- Erodes motivation
- Negative self-perception further harms your mental health
Looking at the impact of stigma on your personal and public life highlights stigma’s role in recovery.
The Impact of Stigma as a Barrier to Recovery
As previously mentioned, one of the most profound impacts of stigma is the barriers it places on sustaining recovery. It is well known that stigma can impede help-seeking behaviors. However, that impairment to help-seeking can persist even after you complete treatment because of the guilt and shame stigma causes. Listed below are some of the ways the impact of stigma can impair your recovery:
- Increases risk for mental health disorders or exacerbates preexisting issues
- Higher rates of relapse
- Prejudice and discrimination limit resources
- Fewer support groups
- Housing and employment
- Social exclusion
The impact of stigma in recovery can impair your sense of belonging, purpose, and hope to thrive in recovery. However, stigma does not have to be the end of your recovery. With advances in holistic support, you can utilize resources like digital media to reintegrate and thrive.
Dismantling the Impact of Stigma With Digital Media
Digital media, like social media, can be effective tools for addressing the impact of stigma on well-being. Social media and other digital media technologies allow information to be disseminated to a large, diverse audience. Therefore, digital media, like social media campaigns, can reach and dismantle stereotypes about SUD and mental health to support the well-being of the stigmatized and stigmatizers. Some of the ways digital media tools can help dismantle the impact of stigma include:
- Increase hope for recovery
- Support trust between the public and people in recovery
- Increase openness to seeking support during treatment and post-treatment
- Decrease perception of otherness
- Reduce depression, anxiety, and loneliness
- Enhance your quality of life
- Build resilience
Looking at the benefits of digital media for reducing the impact of stigma showcases the value of education in recovery. With alumni support, you can continue to learn and grow in your recovery.
Empowering Sustained Recovery With Education at Driftwood Recovery
We know recovery and reintegration are complex. At Driftwood Recovery, we are dedicated to providing a person-centered approach to reintegration during and after treatment. Stigma can leave you feeling ashamed and alone in your recovery. Through our active and peer-driven network of alumni, we remind you that you are not alone and deserving of a meaningful life. With an alumni program, you can find the service, support, accountability, and encouragement needed to build a courageous life in sustained recovery.
Learning to reintegrate into society can feel overwhelming. The impact of stigma can further complicate and hinder your ability to lead a fulfilling life in recovery. Stigma, in its many converging components like public, self, and structural stigma, can leave you feeling too ashamed and alone to seek support as you learn how to live in recovery. However, with education support resources like digital media literacy, you can build tools to combat the stigma that impedes opportunities to rebuild your life. With an active alumni program at Driftwood Recovery, you can find the support and educational resources needed to thrive in sustained recovery. Call us at (512) 759-8330 to learn more today.