Beyond Victimhood

When I talked with Katie Herzog about her journey to get sober, I was struck when she said she identifies as “recovered” and not “in recovery.” That tiny grammatical difference flies in the face of what you typically hear about substance disorders: that they are ongoing conditions, or even inherent traits. I remember hearing Macklemore refer to his own alcoholism as an “allergy.” I sympathize with the impulse to think about substance disorders in this way, as a humanistic response to the vilification and criminalization of people struggling with addiction. But there’s something truly liberating about Katie’s reframing. Katie does not identify with alcoholism. Katie is not an alcoholic.

It’s also kind of radical. In our culture, identity is everything, and we spend a lot of our mental energy identifying ourselves and others, especially when those identities have a claim to grievance or adversity. Sometimes that’s for good reason. People need names for their struggles, and communities of…