Intra-Addict Community Hierarchy
On the misguidedness of "I may be an alcoholic, but at least I'm not a junkie."
Hierarchies exist in many forms and in many spaces. They can be conscious and unconscious, written and unwritten. Under capitalism, hierarchy is omnipresent. No matter what you do to unlearn biases and stereotypes, hierarchies persist. Within the addict community, hierarchy has very real and very harmful effects.
Pretty much everyone knows better than to identify as an addict at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, lest the judgmental stares and sneers from around the room tempt you to pick up a bottle yourself. Junkies and tweakers are to stick to NA, DAA, and the various other drug-specific meetings. While NA (Narcotics Anonymous) has its own “Big Book,” DAA (Drug Addicts Anonymous) uses the same literature as Alcoholics Anonymous. There’s no shortage of substitutions when it comes to 12 step meetings. Whether it’s exchanging “God” for “Higher Power” or even a doorknob (a common hyperbolic suggestion when a group member is struggling to identify a higher power), no matter what you take issue with, there’s a solution carefully crafted through decades of 12 step meetings.
Addiction thrives through minimization and comparison. “I can’t be that bad, at least I’m not smoking/shooting/doing fake pills/ etc.” At every “level” of addiction you will find this. The alcoholic can’t be that bad because alcohol is legal, right? The prescription opiate user can’t possibly be that bad because they get their fix straight from the pharmacy, no shady transactions necessary. The fake pill user who swallows their pills isn’t nearly as far gone as the user who injects them. The examples could go on and on; including various states of housing stability, physical deterioration, and employment/ financial situations. No matter what I do, someone is always doing “worse.” What some fail to realize though, is that they too are someone else’s “worse.” In the concept of “rock bottom,” we must remember that rock bottom is subjective. Especially at a time when fentanyl misinformation is at an all time high, dispelling myths and showing a united front is imperative. Stigma kills and the sense of hierarchy in the addiction community only serves to perpetuate that.