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Stigma surrounding addiction keeps many professors’ addictions hidden.

Fear of career damage stops academics from seeking support for addiction.

Humanizing addiction may be key to breaking this stigma in higher education.

Back in May of this year, Scott Carlson, senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote a story about substance abuse among college professors. As a former professor who struggled with addiction for years, I read Scott’s story with great interest. Although I’d published a memoir a couple of months prior in which I discuss addiction in academia, Scott’s article prompted me to do more.

I contacted him, and we had a thought-provoking discussion about stigma toward addiction, which exceeds stigma toward any other mental health condition. I blogged about it afterward, but that didn’t seem like enough. Fear of stigma kept me in the closet about my addiction for 25 years, and two things science tells us are that (1) academics tend to hide almost any disability at almost........

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