Alcoholic is not a dirty word.

Stigma kills.

I am and always will be an alcoholic.

I am almost ten years sober, but I will be an alcoholic until the day I die. I am not recovered; I am in recovery. All this is true because I cannot drink alcohol without catastrophic results. One of the lessons I learnt at Alcoholics Anonymous is that complacency is a slippery slope towards relapse. Referring to myself as ‘recovered’ would be to invite disaster. Superstitious? Yup. But I’m sticking to it!

Since getting sober, being an alcoholic has not formed any part of my external identity. I have not presented this part of me to the world. I do not want this illness to define me. It is not who I am. It is a disease that I have. I prefer for the myriad other pieces of my personality and life to define me. They are far more interesting!

That said, I am painfully aware that the stigma surrounding alcoholism has contributed to my aversion to sharing this part of my life openly.

More and more, I see people in the public eye opening up about their struggles with alcohol. There are articles in magazines, national newspapers, on news websites. Influential and famous people are talking about the adverse effects that alcohol has had on them. Great! Yet nobody using the words alcoholism and alcoholic in these press releases. Why is everyone tiptoeing around this major issue?

I understand completely that not everyone who stops drinking is an alcoholic and that there are multiple reasons why people choose to cut out alcohol. However, very few prominent people who are alcoholics are willing to say these words out loud. Like the words are just too tainted to be associated with. You can imagine the celebrities’ PR teams’ panic and alarm at the suggestion that said celebrity ruins their image by admitting to being an alcoholic! Instead, you’ll hear about people who are now sober or teetotal. You’ll read about alcohol abuse or problems with alcohol, and you’ll learn that people stopped drinking to curb their anxiety, to learn to love themselves, to live their best life … any description that leans away from the negative connotations associated with alcoholism.

For example, in a recent article in Vogue magazine, the contributor writes, ‘I quit alcohol because I cannot control my alcohol use’ and goes on to describe her first 365 days of sobriety. The article does not use the word alcoholic or alcoholism once in the entire piece.

Even medical professionals seem uncomfortable with the diagnosis of Alcoholic. My own GP uses the definition ‘Alcohol Use Disorder’ and during a recent consult, she chose to remove the word ‘Alcoholism’ from the list of medical information that is included on any referral letters. My suggestion that she simply add my sober date to my medical notes was dismissed.

Despite the hyper-normalisation of discussion around mental health in recent years, there is still a huge problem with the stigmatisation of the words, alcoholism and alcoholic. Alcoholism is a severe mental health disease. Why is it less acceptable to society to suffer from addiction that it is another mental illness?

The only way that we can smash the stigma is by using these words in public conversation and by reinforcing that being an alcoholic is nothing to be ashamed of. Recovery and sobriety are to be celebrated, not downplayed because we are afraid of sharing what we overcame to get here. Stigma prevents people from seeing the human behind the disease. We need to openly display the human face of alcoholism and our sober success stories. We need to change society’s pre-conceived ideas about who we are.

Stigma is what stops people seeking help. I know I did not want to admit to myself or anyone else that I was an alcoholic. How can we expect addicts to face their problems if the very name of their disease makes people shudder? How can addicts ask for help if they don’t want to be labelled a certain way? How can addicts move through recovery and sobriety if they can’t even speak out loud about it without fear of judgement? How can we own what happened to us, if we can’t even say it?

Alcoholics Anonymous is not the only support group out there but it is arguably the most well-known. You can go to AA meetings and just listen but if you want to say anything, you have to begin with, ‘my name is and I’m an alcoholic'. This is very powerful because it reinforces the speakers’ identification as an alcoholic (you must never become complacent), but it also denies access to support for a body of people who suffer with Alcohol Use Disorder but don’t want to identify as alcoholics. Because of the ingrained stigma.

There’s a multitude of amazing individuals on social media offering support and advice to struggling addicts and those navigating sobriety. One popular message on social media is that if you are actively in addiction and need help, that you do not need to identify as an alcoholic. You can describe your problem any way that you like. I wholeheartedly agree. The most important concern for any addict is to ask for help and to get better. Being pedantic about language at this point is not helpful. However, this entire line of thinking has sprung up because of the profound stigmatisation of the terms, alcoholic and alcoholism. If alcoholics were not so demonised by society, we wouldn’t need to find other words to describe this disease.

I am left with the uncomfortable truth that by only sharing my story here on Substack, I am perpetuating rather than ‘smashing’ the stigma. I am still scared of what people will think of me when I tell them. I have friends that I have not told yet. Will they view me differently, treat me differently, act differently around me? Will it make things awkward? I know the answer to these questions is ‘probably not’. Part of my fear stems from my background of emotional neglect and need to be liked, but a lot of it comes from me reinforcing the stigma by assuming that others will automatically think less well of me when they find out!

I am essentially allowing the stigma to hold me back from sharing my story more widely and preventing my story from being heard by people who need to hear it. That’s a scary thought. I need to act as a role model. I need to take action to break the stigma that I feel crushed by but am maintaining. Because recovering out loud prevents others from dying quietly.

Thank you for reading My Secret Sobriety.

Kate xoxox