In meetings, we're encouraged to introduce ourselves with a name and some kind of marker (e.g. 'alcoholic', 'addict', 'anon'). In some meetings, if you don't use one, someone will shout out, 'What are you?' to force you to use the appropriate label (and woe betide someone who misreads the cue, refuses to comply, or gives the 'wrong' label). The argument runs that it's to screen sharers to check they're actually alcoholics and not dope-fiends or Al-Anons in disguise, as though one share by a non-alcoholic will irretrievably spoil the pudding or open the floodgates. In most meetings, however, things are pretty genial, and people just trot out the label or two that fits ('alcoholic', 'alcoholic and addict').
What's the point or benefit of this? What I find salutary is us all recognising we're here for the same reason. If it's a broad church (like CA or NA), the 'same reason' is not the particular drug but addiction more broadly, hence, 'I'm an addict'. Secondarily, the labelling represents a re-admission of Step One. I'm obviously an addict as well as an alcoholic, and I've had a bunch of other compulsions, too. But the single admission is just fine and quite enough for one day. If I feel the need to catch everything, I'll say 'addict' (which is what I say at CA or DAA), and that works well. It would be pedantic and superstitious, respectively, to suggest that failing to list every single problem represents denial or lets the Devil by omission.
What I no longer find super helpful for me is to trot out my particular litany of addictions, dysfunctions, compulsions, etc. In AA, we don't specify ('daily drinker', 'continuous drinker', 'binge drinker', 'Cinzano drinker', etc.), but in some fellowships (mostly food and sex) the label drills down into the specific detail of the problem. I certainly do have 'issues' in 'other areas', and some of these are quite specific, but I now find it sufficient to signal 'addict' (e.g. at SA).
Exhaustive listing might be great for the individual but it's not so great for the group, in my view. It makes it sound as though we all have different problems and are here for different reasons. Step Two is based on identification, and specialness and difference erode identification. Narrow labels divide. They divide us from each other. Are we a group or are we a collection of disparate individuals?
But is it so great even for the individual? Labels constrain the problem to a box or a tower of boxes, as though we don't have a general problem of personal catastrophe but a list of ailments ('I'm X and I have fallen arches, fungal nails, psoriasis, and mitral valve regurgitation'). My list is my wicker basket of poisonous sweets. Rather than me being inside the catastrophe, the mini-catastrophes are my collection of dysfunctional ducklings. As if to say: 'But anything I'm not listing is basically under my control, so we're otherwise good.'
There's also a risk of competitive labelling: listing everything can become quite a performance, and the listing has the unintended effect of trivialising each individual problem. Milton has eight listed addictions. But Gavin is just an alcoholic. Does that mean he has less of a problem? Does that mean Milton has more of a problem? Does Milton outshine Gavin?
Multiple listings are often theatrical, and distract from the content. When someone in an AA meeting says they're alcoholic, I don't tend to notice. I do notice when the introduction is non-standard or elaborate. It causes the attention to linger on the individual, and takes the attention off the message that's about to be carried. This causes me to question my motivation when I'm tempted to trot out my list.
Lastly, introductions can be used to signal adopted positions. 'Recovering alcoholic'. 'Recovered alcoholic'. This positions the individual, fine, but it positions the individual in contrast to people who introduce themselves differently. An introduction as a 'recovered alcoholic' in a meeting where that's not the norm can be a dig at people who take the view we're always recovering. An introduction as a 'recovered alcoholic' in a meeting where that's the norm can be a dig at other groups.
I just limit myself to this, depending on the meeting:
- I'm ..., I'm an alcoholic
- I'm ..., I'm an addict
- I'm ..., [I'm an [Al-]Anon]
That does me just fine.
The last word goes to Grady O'H:
"I don't like labels, as I said earlier, and I still don't like them. I don't like 'adult children of alcoholics'. I don't like 'co-alcoholics'. I don't like 'co-dependency'. I don't like 'dysfunctional'. I don't like none of that shit. If you're fucked up, you're fucked up, you know what I mean?"