Today we face an increasing crisis, some call it an epidemic, in a disease we call addiction. We have arrived at this point because addiction is a complex and difficult disease and because the treatment field has not embraced the information we now have available in the same spirit as we have seen with such diseases as cancer, diabetes and stroke.

So I have a dream that one day soon the stigma of addiction will be lifted and that all those in need of treatment, including and especially all family, will receive it without judgment.

I have a dream that instead of incarceration, and the criminal history that follows, the disease of addiction will be addressed in healthy appropriate ways at specialty clinics and hospitals, for what it is, a progressive neurometabolic disease.

I have a dream that medical schools, educational institutions and teaching hospitals will improve their curricula and devote adequate time to all areas of medicine that addiction effects.

I have a dream that addiction will be addressed as a disease and not as a defect of character, moral deficit or a lack of willpower.

I have a dream that the current treatment field will embrace the plentiful research, now available, that has led us to see the complex/treatable biological nature of addiction and let go of those courses of treatment that continue to focus on the person rather than the disease.

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I have a dream that, at some point, hopefully soon, we will be able to talk openly about addiction instead of hiding in the shadows of guilt, shame and blame.

I have a dream that research will develop tests for addiction that will help us to see addiction, very early, before use starts, to prevent the heartache, chaos and death that the disease can cause.

Robert Creamer

Hallowell


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