ASAS conference dispels stigma of addiction, recovery

The Texas Tech Association for Students About Service hosted a free open conference on addiction recovery Saturday at the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery, focusing on reducing the social stigma attached with the process.

The annual event, “12 Step Programs: Not for Losers,” was hosted from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. The conference featured several guest speakers, including professionals Janice Gaunt, Katie Mitchell and George Youngblood. Guests spoke on several topics including eating disorders, drug dependency and alcoholism.

Liesl Wyett, a senior community family and addiction studies major from Oklahoma City, said ASAS started the convention to help educate and inspire people.

“We’re here to offer information to those interested in the process of addiction and recovery,” she said, “and so I’m here to work the convention and be of service to the community.”

Wyett is a member of both ASAS and the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery, and said the center aims to help recovering alcoholics and drug addicts on the path to recovery.

“Basically, what the center does is it gives recovering addicts and alcoholics a second chance,” she said. “And because we are about service and about giving back to the community, this was just another way to do that, was to join an organization where that was their primary purpose.”

Austin Brown, a faculty member involved with ASAS and the CSAR, said this year’s theme was “to educate, to advocate and to inspire.”

Even if people are not addicts themselves, Brown said, they are still affected by it in some aspect of their lives.

“I think as a society — if we look at the numbers — virtually every American is touched in someway by addiction, either through healthcare premiums, insurance, family members,” Brown said. “And these are all kinds of addictions — from sex addictions to tobacco. And it’s very entrenched in our society, but we don’t talk about it, necessarily.”

Brown said he believes opening society to conversation about addiction recovery will lessen the negative stigma attached to it.   

“I think that, as a society, as we begin to face this issue and it becomes OK to talk about, it becomes a topic that’s not forbidden,” he said, “that more and more people will come forward with different kinds of issues, and that the resources at all levels will be there.”

He said most of the taboo in addiction stems from people’s refusal to acknowledge its existence in others.

“You know, the stigma is kind of like no parent wants to think that their kid is a drug addict, and no kid wants to think their dad is an alcoholic,” he said. “Nobody wants to think their minister is a sex addict. But those are the very people that have addiction issues, and rather than it being something that we as a society need to be ashamed about, it’s something that we need to work for change.”

Ben Bass, a Gulf Coast regional representative for Faces and Voices for Recovery, director of the El Paso Alliance and a speaker at the convention, said he believes society makes it shameful for those who chose to seek help.

Faces and Voices of Recovery, a national addiction recovery advocacy organization, conducted a telephone poll during the past year, Bass said, and found out of 4,000 self-identified addicts, 40 percent reported not seeking help.

“There’s a general idea in popular culture that someone who needs help from alcohol and drug problems is either a weak-willed individual,” he said, “or someone with low moral character, or in some other way a less than adequate human being and nothing could be further from the truth.”

The party culture found on college campuses can be starting points for alcohol and drug addictions that can continue for years, Bass said, but once recovery is sought, it does not have to be an uphill battle.   

“I would like to make sure that people know that there is life after alcohol and drugs,” he said.

Bass said he encourages anyone who needs help to find it when they are ready.

“If you want to quit, just do it,” he said. “If you can’t, if you need some help, there’s plenty of help around. If you’re a family member of somebody who has a problem with alcohol or drugs, take care of yourself. Rest assured that there’s plenty of help if that person wants it.”

Joe Dwyer, a freshman with an undeclared major, said he is trying to become a member of the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery for Fall 2012.

Dwyer is a recovering heroin addict, and said he decided to quit and seek help after it became too much for him.

“I started drinking and using weed when I was in, like, middle school,” he said, “and then moved on to prescription pain killers, then I was using heroin for, like, two-and-a-half years. I was sick and tired of it. It’s a bad lifestyle.”

CSAR is more than a place of recovery for students, Dwyer said, it is a place to find support groups and friends.

“It’s like a safe haven, like, on campus for people who are in recovery, and somewhere they can hang out and be with fellow people in recovery,” he said. “There’s just a lot of support here.”

Wyett said she believes CSAR not only helps those with addictions by having these conventions, but it helps the community as a whole as well.

“I think it’s very important for the community to have resources to learn about the process of addiction and recovery,” she said. “I think it’s a large issue in the community and the more attention we bring to it, the less taboo it will be. It aids, really basically, in the acceptance of others.”

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ASAS conference dispels stigma of addiction, recovery