Stigma is Grace in Reverse

reflections on addiction recovery discrimination and what we can do about it

From Chapter 3: Dumpster Fires and Deserts in Downstairs Church: Finding Hope in the Grit of Addiction and Trauma

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “addiction?” When was the last time you saw something about addiction on the nightly news or while you were scrolling on your phone? How was it portrayed?

This may be a startling fact: There are over 23 million Americans (and more than half of those women) who identify as being a person in recovery from addiction. Though in the world around us, addiction is rarely associated with something positive like recovery.

If you are around my age (not telling) you might remember the stories upon stories about Lindsey Lohan and her wild red-maned shenanigans and less than glamorous bar-time photos or Charlie Sheen’s interview (I needn’t say more). Addiction in the news is focused on the cringe-worthy, shocking, and keeps us on the edges of our seats like the latest trending Netflix series or Britney Spears shaving her head in the early 2000s. Or Britney Spears today, for that matter.

In the news, we hear about the problem of substance use and dependence, ugly statistics about the opioid epidemic or about how drug dealers are destroying our cookie-cutter communities and stealing the futures of our brightest youth or from the offering plates.

We are led to believe that addiction is only concentrated in poor urban centers, not in our own backyards, not in our church sanctuaries, not in our living rooms.

What about recovery? What about the millions of Americans and the hundreds of millions globally who have found a solution and now live transformed lives? What about the millions of resources available to help someone like me or like my family find the help that they need: medication-assisted treatments, community and faith-based supports, nonprofit organizations and small businesses, and countless other avenues that bring light into the darkness for those who struggle with addiction? What about the faith that God shakes through the “secular” circles of recovery spaces?

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Marty Mann was one of the first women to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and after entering recovery around 1940, she began telling her story. Because of her Christian faith and belief that God called her to the task, she was tireless in her efforts to bring light to the realities of addiction and recovery, and was passionate about helping those “afflicted” with medical conditions who were, at that time, shunned by society. Because of her advocacy in the United States, the stigma surrounding alcoholism began to shift slightly and more people came to see it as a health issue (albeit with spiritual components) instead of a moral one.

We live in a very different world today than the one Marty Mann lived in, despite the prevalence of negative coverage about addiction in the media. You’ve likely seen on your newsfeed celebrities celebrating sobriety milestones or discussions about how billions of dollars of federal funding are going toward helping people struggling with opioid addiction (or maybe the algorithm doesn’t allow it). Or perhaps, like me, you have even told your own story and brought it out of church basements and into a more visible sphere like social media to let others know that hope and change is possible.

Despite these positive strides forward, stigma sadly still exists—and sometimes especially in the faith community. Addiction is not viewed the same as other medical conditions, like cancer or diabetes, for instance. Can you imagine if your church decided not to let “those people” recovering from chemotherapy into your church after hours for fear they might steal the scarves from the kid’s room? Or imagine not letting Chuck into the kitchen during the community meal preparation for fear he would sneak too many cookies and what would happen if he needed his insulin? Why, you are not a doctor. 

What is stigma? I’ll put on my teacher hat. The word “stigma” in Greek refers originally to a mark or brand on Greek slaves that separated them from free men or women. Slaves were branded so that they were clearly distinguished from those who were in upper classes. When they walked down the road, there was no mistaking. The dictionary definition now says that stigma is “a mark of disgrace or infamy.”

In a foundational work on the topic, Stigma: Notes On the Management of Spoiled Identity, Erving Goffman notes that it involves “an attribute that is deeply discrediting.”^[i]

Those with substance use disorders are often seen as unpredictable or dangerous, and as a result, they suffer greater social rejection and isolation.^[ii] Stigma towards addiction is further perpetuated by attitudes that characterize the individual as at fault for their condition or immoral.^[iii]

Jesus was familiar with this concept. Those with conditions like leprosy were similarly shunned by society, as were women who were known to have committed sexual sins like adultery. Greeks, Gentiles, anyone who wasn’t Jewish, gluttons, sinners—you know, Jesus’ crew—all of these folks had scarlet letters of one kind or another that caused them to be outsiders, misfits, ragamuffins. 

In John 8:2-11, the story of a woman caught in adultery is told. Jesus had been once again in the temple courts, a place where he frequently sat down to teach the people and the Pharisees and other teachers of the law. The people listened on and often tried to trap him in what he said. Today, the Pharisees and these teachers would most definitely be called “internet trolls” and probably hide behind their Twitter accounts or message boards to say some pretty revile and judgmental things. But I digress.

A woman was brought in who had been caught in adultery. These teachers shamed the woman by making her stand before the group. I imagine that she stood there with eyes looking towards the dirty ground, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, brushing away the mud and blood-caked strands of hair from her sweaty face.

The crowd looked towards Jesus and questioned:

Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?

Of course, Jesus knew that they were trying to trap him so that they could finally catch him doing something “wrong,” according to them. Of course, Jesus also evaded them by being super wise, as is his way (aka meta-woke). He bent down and began writing on the ground with his finger.

Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.

And—mic drop.

Jesus very effectively, in one sentence, not only crashed their hopes of trapping him, but also humbled them all. How could they accuse this woman if they had also sinned—and likely many of them with the same sin of adultery that she was being accused?

Instead of addressing the crowd anymore, he turned away and continued to write on the ground. I like to imagine that he did a nonchalant hair toss before he snubbed them. Now, there is some speculation about what exactly Jesus was writing on the ground. No one knows for sure, but I like to envision that it was the lyrics to Amazing Grace, the lines that would later inspire the slave trader-transformed-abolitionist, John Newton.

Jesus also did not condemn the woman as they stood there while everyone left the temple courts one by one, like dogs who just stole the buttermilk biscuits off the counter, tails between their legs and ears back. He turned to her when everyone was gone—and this is important, this intimate moment between the two of them—and asks if anyone has condemned her (knowing full well the answer). After she answers no, he says:

Then neither do I condemn you […] Go now and leave your life of sin.

Jesus gave the woman a taste, perhaps for the first time, of grace. In Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott says that grace is:

[…] the force that infuses our lives and keeps letting us off the hook. It is unearned love—the    love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.^[iv]

Now, we don’t hear any more from this woman in scripture, but we can assume that this encounter with a loving God changes her. We can assume that the grace “juice,” as Lamott calls it, tastes pretty darn good like that super expensive ultra-organic grape juice at Whole Foods. We can assume that she does leave the life she had been living—whatever that looked like—and started again.

Stigma is very concerning for many reasons. It can prevent those with addiction issues from reaching out for help. It can also negatively impact the way we see ourselves. It’s like grace in reverse, a taking away of what God has promised us sinners.

In What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey talks about the origins of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. Founders Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson went to visit a lawyer who had been in and out of institutions and hospital wards and was restrained to a hospital bed in leather shackles. The worn-out and combative drunk had to listen to the white-haired teetotalers. Yancey writes that the visitors shared their recovery stories with the lawyer and how they discovered God, their higher power, through the process.

As soon as they mentioned their Higher Power, Bill D. (the lawyer) shook his head sadly.

“No, no,” he said. “It’s too late for me. I still believe in God all right, but I know mighty well that He doesn’t believe in me anymore.”^[v]

For many, struggling through addiction and other mental health challenges, grace feels far away, a chasm that can’t be bridged. There is too much between a loving God and a dastardly child.

I’m sure this woman caught in adultery was not feeling too great about herself—whether or not she was actually guilty as the mob of people suggested (though it does seem like it as the text suggests she was caught). Either way—guilty or not, sexual immorality was highly stigmatized because women were forced to endure the public consequences and humiliation, whereas men were not.

Before I saw myself through God’s eyes and truly felt grace, I was not willing to reach out for help or let that help really sink into my soul and change it. That sweet sound was so far away. Now, if the angry mob had condemned her instead of walking away one-by-one as they did, would the woman have had the courage to stand with Jesus and answer his call to repentance? If they forced her to wear her scarlet letter and shut her out (even unknowingly) from accessing the grace she so desperately needed, would she have turned towards a new road and new life at all?

Imagine if you turned on the evening news and heard a story of how love has greeted us on the way, before we deserved it, or a story about how we had met someone struggling in active addiction and said “yes, I see you and hear you and am here no matter what?” What if you saw in my teenage eyes the reason why I wanted to escape, why I spent so much time alone in the dark, and loved me anyway?^[vi]

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[i] Erving, Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity (Simon and Schuster, 1963).

[ii] Georg Schomerus et al. “The Stigma of Alcohol Dependence Compared with Other Mental Disorders: A Review of Population Studies.” Alcohol and Alcoholism, 46, no.2 (2011), 105-112, doi: 10.1093/alcalc/agq089

[iii] A. H. Crisp et al. (2000). “Stigmatization of People with Mental Illnesses.” The British Journal of Psychiatry, 177 no. 1 (2000), 4-7, doi: 10.1192/bjp.177.1.4

[iv] Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (New York: Anchor Books, 2000),139.

[v] Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan 2002), 68.

[vi] Portions of this chapter from an article first published in The Grit and Grace Project (2021): https://thegritandgraceproject.org/life-and-culture/celebrate-recovery-month-with-grace-instead-of-judgement.