Coloradan Janice Greenwood "Lifts the Label" on the stigma related to addiction

Janice Greenwood helps save Coloradans lives after she herself has recovered from using crack cocaine. Once on the streets of Denver, homeless and actively using, Greenwood is now a licensed medical case worker at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.  

"I got my own apartment, my own car -- and it's paid for!" Greenwood said.     

She's helping promote the state's Lift the Label campaign in Colorado that works to eliminate the damaging stigma that can prevent those with addiction from getting help. The Lift the Label Campaign is directed by Colorado's Behavioral Health Administration.

"Everything I did, I used, was evil... everything... I lied. I stole," Greenwood said. Greenwood says she developed a substance use disorder when as a teenager she wanted to fit in. Now she's celebrating 19 years of being sober.

Greenwood's advice for family and friends who want to help a loved one suffering from addiction, "You have to be patient with your loved one. And they need not to enable them."  

Greenwood says families need to understand the drug a person is using, and its effects on a person. Also to know there are services out there because Greenwood says they can't recover alone.

She tells struggling users, "The same energy, strength, and time you put into your addiction when you were looking for that drug or that drink, you use that same energy and time to put into your recovery so that you not only get sober but you learn how to stay sober."

In a 2021 survey conducted by the Colorado Health Institute, the Colorado Health Access Survey, more than 80,000 Coloradans said they needed substance use treatment but did not get it. Of these, 77% said they didn't seek treatment because of the stigma associated with addiction – the feeling of shame and judgment.  

Greenwood says it's her mission now to help people and she's helped hundreds, "What I do mostly is listen." 

"I come to a good job where I work doing things that I love to do -- things that I learned to do," Greenwood said.

And she is living proof there's every reason to be hopeful recovery is within reach.  

CBS News Colorado will stream its Lift the Label Community Conversation on October 10 at 1pm, on World Mental Health Day.