Aulino, FelicityPugh, Christine2025-01-142025-01-14https://hdl.handle.net/10166/6747Anthropology ThesisThis thesis explores the lived experience and structural conditioning of Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment in rural Vermont. It is based on seven months of ethnographic research with an SUD recovery center, where I participated in various modalities of clinical and social treatment for those with SUD. In this text, first I highlight the interconnections between biomedicine and policing as they come into conflict with the care goals of individuals with SUD, resulting in a need for advocates in the form of Recovery Center staff. I then discuss the moral stakes of SUD in the local area, with particular attention to the dimensions of social suffering related to SUD. Finally, I look into the ways in which current shortcomings in this realm might be addressed through the usage of art and art therapy, not just as treatment for SUD in and of itself, but also as a tool for advocacy that can affect the landscape of stigma and subsequent treatment of people with SUD.en-USSubstance Use DisorderArtArt TherapyAnthropologyMedical AnthropologyHarm ReductionEthnographyStigmaLocal Moral WorldsSocial SufferingThesispublic