If you or someone you love has dealt with addiction, the Huffington Post would like to know your story. If you’ve reached a place in your journey where you feel comfortable doing so, here’s their offer and a link to contribute. Where The Center for Effective Living is not actively endorsing participation in this project, having an outlet as influential as the Huffington Post draw attention to an issue we deal with daily can do a lot of good, and we wanted to share news of their upcoming series on addiction and the opportunity to participate.
The following text is taken from The Huffington Post, and the link below will take you to the article in its original context and the link for story sharing.
For the week of May 5-9, HuffPost Live is airing a special week-long series about the social impacts of drug addiction. From the stigma of addiction to the high cost of rehabilitation, the human toll of mandatory sentences and controversial treatment methods, “The War On Addiction” series will discuss the social ramifications of addiction and expose some of the misconceptions of being an addict. The series will bring together lawmakers, rehabilitation specialists, advocates, celebrities, and real people who struggle with addiction.
Since the 1970s, America has been aggressively fighting a War on Drugs and as a result launched an unspoken war on addicts. We’ve treated addicts as criminals and treated addiction with prison sentences. But with prison populations at an all-time high, drug sentencing reform a rare bipartisan issue, and public opinion now in favor of treatment, is this obscure war coming to an end?
Addiction is a debilitating disease that affects 23.5 million Americans.