This past weekend, I had the privilege to attend a daylong class on Buddhism and recovery led by Kevin Griffin, author of One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps. At one point during the day, we broke off into pairs to do an exercise in which we shared around our spiritual journey. I sat down across from my partner, who said, “Hi, I’m Amanda, and I’m an alcoholic.” “Hi, I’m Mary,” I said, “and I’m… codependent.” And I thought, “Oh, that sounds so lame. She really belongs here. She has really struggled. She has real problems and real pain. I’m just a codie.”

That feeling came up again as I listened to Kevin Griffin, himself a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, talk about how he wasn’t just talking from theory: he’d been there and he got it. What on earth did I get? I’ve never had more than three glasses of alcohol in the course of a day: never enough to get sick, never enough to black out, never enough to get hung over. I’ve never taken a single puff of a cigarette. I’ve never done any illegal drugs: never even tried pot, although I’ve lived with roommates who smoked it regularly. I once had prescription pain medication after surgery and it made me vomit, so on occasions when medications have been prescribed to me since, I’ve been too scared of the side effects to take them and have gotten by without.

At one point, the issue of compulsive eating was raised. I could have said, “Ah ha! I struggle with that! There’s something that qualifies me to be here.” But instead I thought, “I’m not working an active recovery program around that. People here are in recovery. I am working on codependency, but that’s lame and doesn’t count. That’s not a real problem. Addiction is a real problem, and the addictive issues I have, I’m not focusing on. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t fit in. I’m a poser.”

Then I realized, I’ve had the same feelings before, “Oh, I don’t have a right to be here, to be hurt, because… His life has been harder than mine. She’s lost more through her actions. My childhood wasn’t that bad. My parents didn’t beat me. I wasn’t raped. I don’t have it that hard. I’m making a big deal out of nothing. I’m crazy.” It was that same old soundtrack was playing again this weekend.

It’s my own twist on “I’m not good enough”: I’m not good enough because things aren’t bad enough! Oy!