One could wear a crinoline with petticoats peeping out coyly as the dress swishes back and forth, ribbons, tassels, and any variety of bangles, bonnets, studs, pins, scarves, fascinators, and broaches.
Or one could wear a simple white cotton shift.
One can announce oneself as an alcoholic (whether or not with the preceding recovering or recovered), an addict, a grateful member of the worldwide fellowship of the Al-Anon Family Groups, plus a baker's dozen of SLAA micro-epithets to denote the very particular subgroup of maladjustments. Within a group containing just one category, e.g. alcoholic, describing oneself as an alcoholic is merely showing one's entry ticket at the door, a perfunctory admission as the admission price, a pride-popping leveller, an empty adornment like the school tie that everyone is wearing. Within a group containing more than one category, the function is reversed, and the self-abasing label becomes an adornment, the multiple labels an intersection of ignominies, the elaborate modifications a form of self-conscious self-styling. The anonymity of identity (in the sense of being identical) becomes the preening display of identity (in the sense of that which marks one out). The great prize, of course, is to construct such an elaborate introduction that one finds oneself in a set comprising just one member: oneself. The self-introductions become like the sequence of high-sounding announcements by the master of ceremonies at a nineteenth century ball. I present to you: Marie Charlotte Hippolyte de Saujon, Comtesse de Boufflers.
From the simple salute to the single flag of commonality, there has been a descent into markers of difference.
Today, I pick one and go with it. I pick the simplest variant. Alcoholic or Addict or Al-Anon will cover pretty much everything.