Addiction and/as Disability

Rhetorical Formations, Legal History, and the Case for Addiction Justice · CCCC 2026

"Very little conversation existed about addiction in the field of DS and that DS as a field had done little to inform addiction studies."

— Jessica K. Bacon, Disability Studies Quarterly (2024)

Three Relational Frameworks

Addiction as Disability

Apply DS frameworks directly to addiction phenomena

Addiction and Disability

Co-constitutive, entangled — neither reduces to the other

Addiction and/as Disability

Hold both in tension — the most productive analytical approach

Addiction as Rhetorical Formation

Condit's framework — discourse sets that collectively shape cultural understanding
Rhetoric of addiction — cultural, medical, legal, and carceral frames in concert
The "rhetorical brain" — neuroscience deployed rhetorically; brain-based explanations as cultural constructs
Vernacular neurorhetoric — dopamine discourse ("digital dopamine") circulating outside formal science as a key site of overlap between addiction and disability formations

The most impactful idea in DS: disability is in barriers, not bodies.

A Social Model of Addiction

Not in the addict — addiction located in a society that creates barriers for users
Racialized demarcations — criminalizing users of color, extending sympathy to white users
Capricious categories — iatrogenic, recreational, and pathological distinctions are socially produced
Compulsory sobriety — McRuer's able-bodiedness applied; heteronormativity and non-disordered use as linked norms

Operationalizing the social model reveals substantial challenges — named here, not resolved.

From Intemperance to ADA: A Legal History

19th c.

"Addiction to intemperance" disqualifies Philadelphia welfare recipients

1972

DA&A program: addiction recognized as disability-eligible for SSI/SSDI

1990

ADA codifies workplace protections — with abstinence-based limits

1994

Congress ends DA&A; organ damage requirement throughout its run

1972 – 1994

The Drug Addiction & Alcoholism Program

First federal recognition — addiction as a personality disorder warranting SSI and Disability Insurance
Organ damage required — embedding the medical model even as it nominally challenged it
Moralized resistance — fierce debate over whether addicts who "chose" disability deserved benefits

Senator Harold Hughes — recovering alcoholic, vocal advocate — argued against extending SSI benefits to addicts, fearing recipients would use the money to buy drugs.

— Evidence of how pervasive stigmatization of active addicts is, even within recovery communities

The ADA: Protection with Conditions

Gains

Workplace protections, bias elimination in treatment programs, formal legal recognition of addiction as disability-adjacent

Limits

Drug users must prove abstinence; alcoholics need not. 2017 DOJ guidance: current opioid users explicitly unprotected.

500K+

opioid-related deaths since 1999 — while "current users" remain unprotected under the ADA

Disability Rights vs. Disability Justice

Disability Rights

Rights-based framework; overwhelmingly white; ADA as crowning achievement; formal legal protections

Disability Justice

Interlocking oppressions (Berne); intersectional; picks up where DRM failed; conditions for flourishing, not just rights

Disability Justice Applied to Addiction

Harm Reduction

Unequivocal embrace — not just survive but flourish, active users included

Structural Critique

Limbic capitalism and interlocking systems of oppression that harm addicts and users

Interdependence

Critique of "anti-dependency" ideologies; embrace of care, mutual aid, and connection

Disability must not be a death sentence. Neither should addiction.

Toward Addiction Justice

Critique limbic capitalism — systems designed to produce addicts across the population
Center intersectionality — racism, classism, and sexism compound harm for marginalized users
The pain gap — racial bias in opioid medicine disadvantages Black patients
Maternal surveillance — all mothers stigmatized; mothers of color most exposed

The stigmatization of addiction may in fact be a uniquely American stigmatization of interdependence.

— Elizabeth F.S. Roberts; historians of addiction on self-control, independence, and American working- and middle-class values

Addiction and/as Disability

Andrew Appleton Pine · University of Michigan
CCCC 2026 · Cleveland