Substance Use Disorders: A Guide To the Use of Language This
language guide was created by the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration’s (SAMHSA) Center for Substance Abuse Treatment
(CSAT). Working with SAMHSA’s National Alcohol and Drug
Addiction Recovery Month Planning Partner organizations,
SAMHSA’s Partners for Recovery (PFR) initiative and the PFR
National Subcommittee on Reducing Stigma, this guide integrates
input from numerous interviews, focus groups, and documents. It
also incorporates feedback and edits from reviewers representing
public and private treatment- and recovery-related entities
nationally. This is a dynamic document that will change as the
science around substance use disorders and recovery continues to
evolve, and as further consensus on language is achieved. This
guide is not intended to serve as a glossary of clinical
terminology, nor does it offer a comprehensive list of all the
stigmatizing words used in association wi