Why We Should Reject Society’s Labels in Favor of Honesty
by Noah benShea
As individuals and as a society, what we think about things depends a lot on how our minds got there. And why they took that route.
So, here’s how it works. Your mind in many ways is like someone who is always telling you to clean up your room.
Your mind doesn’t like what it can’t file away. You literally get uncomfortable with what you can’t explain to yourself. What your mind can’t file makes it insecure. And the most common way you solve this conundrum is by giving what you don’t understand a label.
Even if the label is inappropriate, misguided, or a million miles off target, it doesn’t matter to your mind because your mind’s first work is not to find the truth, but to stop the disturbance of not knowing.
A label for what we don’t understand about ourselves, or others, or the world we live in is a shortcut we all have taken. But these labels are nothing less or more than a tool for our ignorance’s filing system. And we all have a mind-closet filled with our boxed-up ignorance filed under: “Deal with this later.”
Of course, a problem avoided is a crisis invented, and what we choose to ignore isn’t necessarily going to ignore us. Which brings us, sadly, to the global anguish of addiction.
Addiction as commonly perceived and discussed is a perfect example of mind-labeling creating its own crisis.
The Latin word for “tattoo” is “stigma.” The word “stigma” comes from the Greek, meaning “to be branded.” And in public parlance, the stigma of addiction too often means one is publicly branded with shame.
To understand how insidiously negative this branding is requires us to take a walk down logic’s lane.
To be negatively marked diminishes social and personal esteem. Diminished self-esteem equals diminished feelings of capacity. Diminished feelings of capacity nurture insecurity. Insecurity worn inside out is anger. Anger turned inward is anger at oneself, and anger at oneself is the most common parent of depression.
Okay, once more so we have this straight. When we are shamed, we reach for denial. When we are in denial, we are dishonest with ourselves. Shame and denial cross-nurture addiction.
This insight can serve not only those suffering from addiction but those who love them and the larger world, if, and only if, we have right action in response.
Society has to lose the shame-branding iron, and the individual has to lose any attachment to the assigned stigma. Why? Because avoiding the truth denies the right to honest self-witnessing, and all personal transformation requires self-witnessing. Self-witnessing is an act of courage. The social leap to honesty is the courage to recognize addiction as a disease.
The individual in addiction must be self-accountable but not self-abusive, reject the shame and denial of the addiction stigma, and not allow the past to kidnap the future.
Because dishonesty, on the part of the addict and society, is so deeply connected with addiction, being honest and to the point is foundational to any opinion we hope will be healing. Add to honesty a reminder to be loving, and here too is my agenda in these thoughts. To be honest and loving are the best two weapons to bring to any fight with addiction.
If you are suffering from addiction or love someone who is suffering from addiction, please do not subscribe any longer to labels for fear of embracing the truth.
Do you have a story of recovery? Share it at HeroesInRecovery.com. Together we can break the stigma surrounding addiction and mental health conditions.
— Noah benShea
About Noah
Noah benShea is one of North America’s most respected and beloved poet-philosophers. An international bestselling author of 23 books translated into 18 languages, including the famed Jacob the Baker series, his inspirational thoughts have appeared on more than 30 million Starbucks coffee cups. His weekly columns on life were published for five years by the New York Times Regional Syndicate and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In addition to his many accomplishments, he serves as Philosopher In Residence for Foundations Recovery Network and is Executive Director of THE JUSTICE PROJECT.
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