You wouldn’t know it given the lack of coverage in The Day and other daily newspapers, radio and TV newscasts, but a very important month is slipping by. While I applaud The Day’s recent reporting on mental health issues and treatment in our communities, the fact is that 94% of people ages 12 and older in 2021 meeting criteria for a substance use diagnosis DID NOT seek treatment. That’s according to a January 2023 report issued by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Twenty-six percent of persons SAMHSA surveyed cited stigma as the reason they did not seek help.

It's clear that stigma kills and that has to change.

Staying away in droves from treatment for misuse of alcohol, other drugs, intimacy afflictions and mental health is a national disgrace.

September is National Recovery Month, and the theme, “Every Person, Every Family, Every Community” suggests that recovery should be possible and available for all. Fighting to remove stigmatizing language is the best way to begin making access easier and more socially acceptable. Who wants to be labeled and marginalized as a “hopeless alcoholic,” “druggie” or “sex addict”? And who wants to be shamed by family members or by an employer? We all need to do better.

The recovery numbers are particularly abysmal for those with an intimacy affliction (IA). Only 5 percent self-report recovering from their IA.

Bill Wilson is best known as the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous -- the 12 step-based movement that has helped save millions of lives. I wish he’d been more open about his struggle with his intimacy affliction of serial adultery. He wrote extensively about his battles with depression, experimentation with drugs, including LSD, and battling his fatal nicotine dependence. But Bill did little to address his IA, especially compared to his fervor for other areas of recovery.

Ironically, in my opinion, he became the first 13th Stepper (sexually pursuing vulnerable persons new to AA), and according to author Susan Cheever, Wilson's IA was an open secret (My Name Is Bill, 2005, Simon & Schuster). Author Francis Hartigan notes a cadre of men, known as the Founder’s Watch, were assigned to Bill at AA meetings and conferences to help ensure he did no skirt chasing (Bill W., 2001, St. Martin's Press).

Intimacy issues fit the definition of affliction: something that causes pain and suffering. Due to stigma, many IAs lurk in the medical shadows, something that quietly destroys the lives of more than 30 million Americans, while bringing heartbreak and misery to loved ones. IA gets expressed in ways our society finds very distasteful: dependence on pornography, regular patronage of sex workers, chronic masturbation and, yes, serial adultery.

A 2018 study found that 10.3% of men and 7% of women reported distress and difficulty in controlling their sexual urges.

Had Bill adhered to the Twelve Steps of AA (which he wrote) and done a formal “fearless and moral inventory” around his sex conduct, he could have helped save the lives of many more millions. Instead, it was not until 1977 that intimacy issues would get a 12-step program. AA has spawned hundreds of other self-help organizations but sadly, the lessening of IA-related stigmas has not kept pace, and actually has moved in the wrong direction.

Experts in the field persist in using inaccurate and stigmatizing language, erroneously referring to IA as “sex and love addiction.” That sensationalizes behaviors that are harmful to the point of ruining lives and families.

I’ve heard the slurs uttered. Robert Weiss, MSW, CSAT-S, is an internationally renowned expert on the causes, manifestations and treatment of IAs. Weiss told me, “This (sex and love addiction) is the language that the public has taken to heart.” Really? A world-renowned expert on romantic love takes it to another level: “Romantic love junkies, attachment junkies, violence junkies and co-dependence junkies.” Astonishingly, these were terms used by Helen Fisher, PhD, during a 2022 Zoom presentation. Obviously, there is much work to be done.

My mission for the past decade, and the focus of my advocacy journalism ("It’s an intimacy disorder! Please don’t call it sex and love addiction," addictionpro.com, Sept. 16, 2015), has been urging persons in the treatment community, the media and even the President of the United States (“Maine Voices: End stigmatizing language around substance use,” Portland Press-Herald, July 16, 2021), to take the lead in ending the use of stigmatizing language.

So why is shaming and archaic language still used to inflict even more fear and humiliation on those coming to terms with the challenges before them? Clinical Psychologist and recovery treatment facility Chief Operating Officer Patrick Lockwood avers: “My gut reaction, and it may not be correct, I just think people don’t care.”

Collectively and mindfully, we can change the narrative. With the focus this month of September on the hope of recovery for all, please choose to use more compassionate and accurate words year-round. The best way to get individuals into life-saving treatment is to remove the stigma.

Thomas M. Greaney is a CT-licensed recovery counselor, author and conference presenter in Connecticut. He lives in Westerly.