Fighting the stigma of Bipolar Disorder

I was reading another one of my blogs today that I follow at http://geneanderson.blogspot.com/ and he brought up an excellent point on how some people out there want to say that Bipolar Disorder is an addiction.  He has a great blog on the reasons it is not an addiction.   I am a strong advocate of fighting stigma associated with bipolar disorder.  The media is notorious for jumping on the band wagon of misconceptions about this disorder.  I don't even understand how some people could say that bipolar disorder is an addiction.  For starters it is a genetic condition that the person is born with and there is nothing that caused this other then being born.  I will agree that self medicating can lead to an addiction but bipolar disorder is not an addiction.  This just shows that there are so many people out there that have no idea what the illness really is and what it is not.  I have channeled my disdain for these misconceptions and partnered with NAMI at http://www.nami.org/ and joined their stigma alerts.  I have found new empowerment by writer to Senators, and Representatives as well as people in the media.  I would encourage anyone that wants to fight this stigma to join the stigma busters and educate the world that Bipolar Disorder is just and illness and it is treatable. To take action go to http://www.nami.org/template.cfm?section=fight_stigma and sign up to educate and stop these misconceptions about bipolar disorder.