Several years ago, I was walking along a busy commercial street in Chapel Hill when I noticed a man sitting on a stoop and passing out flyers. I recognized him from one of the area homeless resource centers, so I asked if I could sit with him for a bit. The flyers were for his lawn care business, which was pulling in about $100-$200 a week, depending on the season. I was impressed by his entrepreneurial spirit, but as we talked, he reached to the side of the stoop and pulled out at tall, silver, 24-ounce can of Icehouse. I realize it was 5 o’clock somewhere, but in North Carolina, it wasn’t quite 10am. “Only two bucks at the gas station,” he informed me, “People think I’m an alcoholic, but I only have four a day.” Floored by his comment, I crunched the numbers. Taking into account the ABV of Icehouse (almost 7%), he was having closer to twelve drinks a day, which translates to 84 drinks a week. Monetarily, 4 cans a day at $2 a can meant, on a slow lawn care week, more than half this man’s income would go to crappy beer. Being in my early 20s when this happened, I didn’t know how to talk about this issue, and after a few more minutes of uncomfortable conversation, we parted ways.

When many people hear the word “alcoholic,” they jump immediately to these kinds of stories. However, this individual doesn’t truly represent the majority of alcoholics or the majority of homeless people. While there are certainly people like this out there –after all, the story above is real–, it’s still a stereotype. Harping on stereotypes increases stigma, and the worse the stigma becomes, the less likely we are to notice or admit problems, making alcoholism that much less likely to be addressed.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church where everyone knew who was hitting the bottle, but no one was willing to talk about it. The people who drank didn’t dare admit it lest they be labeled alcoholics, and the people who knew who drank didn’t talk about it lest they be labeled gossips. And so, drinking was always done in secret, leading to isolation, hospitalization, and a lot of “vacations” which I now know were detox or rehab. The fear of being lumped into the same group as the drunk on the stoop kept a lot of people from seeking help, and if they did get help, it was never talked about, making accountability utterly impossible. Even recovering alcoholics, many of whom hadn’t had a drop in decades, still had to bear the stigma, often being called on to give testimonies while still being held at arm’s length.

Simply put, screw that.

Alcoholism is destructive enough that we need to abandon our stereotypes. We need to acknowledge this as a disease affecting people at all socio-economic levels that may manifest in a number of ways. And for those who seek help with the addiction, we need to be a source of support, not judgment. We need to talk about it openly, and we need to talk about it in ways that help rather than harm.

Fight the stigma.
Push back on the stereotypes.
Talk about it.
Learn about it.
Maybe then we can really help each other.