Two or three times a year, a story breaks, and my email inbox is flooded with messages from friends, students, and colleagues, all sending links along with questions like, “Did you read about this? What do you think?” or “When are you going to write about this?”

Oprah’s latest magazine cover set my all-time email record.

The assumption that I have an opinion on Oprah’s struggle with food makes sense in many obvious ways:

1. I’m a researcher who has spent a decade studying shame, authenticity, and vulnerability.
2. I speak and write about resilience, self-compassion, and acceptance.
3. I’m a feminist who has taught courses on gender, race, and class for 12 years.
4. My book has a very strong focus on body and appearance shame.

The assumption that I would be disappointed or dismayed by Oprah’s perspective, or the media focus on the problem, is not a safe assumption for this one simple reason:

Addiction is a personal issue for me. I connect with what she’s saying, and I appreciate her willingness to put it out there.

If you’ve read my book or if you follow my blog, you probably know that I’ve been sober for 13 years. I haven’t written or talked about it much because, until I started writing my new book, I didn’t really understand it.

Now I get it.

My confusion stems from the fact that I never have felt completely connected with the recovery community. Abstinence and the 12 steps are powerful and profoundly important principles in my life, but not everything about the recovery movement fits for me. For example, millions of people owe their lives to the power that comes from saying, “Hi, I’m Brené and I’m an alcoholic.” That’s never fit for me. Even though I’m grateful for my sobriety and I'm convinced that it has radically changed my life, saying those words has always felt disempowering and strangely disingenuous for me.

I have often wondered if I felt out of place because I quit so many things at one time. My first sponsor couldn’t figure out what meeting I needed and was perplexed by my “very high bottom” (I quit drinking because I wanted to learn more about true self and I was afraid it would get in the way). She looked at me one night and said, “You have the Pu-Pu Platter of addictions – a little bit of everything. Just to be safe, it would be best if you just quit drinking, smoking, comfort-eating, and getting in your family’s business.”

I remember looking at her, throwing my fork on the table, and saying, “Well, that’s effing great. I guess I'll have some free time on my hands."

I never found my meeting. I just made my way through enough meetings to work the steps and get one year of smoke-free sobriety under my belt. And, over time, my personal motto of "Let Go and Let Brené" even gave way to grace.

Now I know why.

I’m basically a take-the-edge-off-aholic. They don’t have meetings for that, and saying that is what you are in a meeting can be fightin’ words if there are any old-timers around. For me, it wasn’t just the dance halls, cold beer, and Marlboro Lights of my youth that got out of hand – it was banana bread, chips and queso, email, work, staying busy, incessant worrying, planning, perfectionism, and anything else that could dull those agonizing and anxiety-fueled feelings of vulnerability.

I’ve had a couple of friends respond to my “I’m a take-the-edge-off-aholic” with concern about their own habits: “I drink a couple of glasses of wine every night – is that bad?” “I always shop when I’m stressed or depressed.” After years of shame research, I believe that we all numb out and take the edge off. The question is, does our _________________ (eating, drinking, spending, gambling, saving the world, gossiping, perfectionism, 60-hour work week, etc.) get in the way of our authenticity? Does it stop us from being emotionally honest and setting boundaries? Keep us from staying out of judgment and from feeling connected?

Understanding my behaviors and feelings through a vulnerability lens rather than strictly through an addiction lens changed my entire life. It also strengthened my commitment to sobriety, health, and spirituality.

I can definitely say, “Hi. My name is Brené, and today I’d like to deal with vulnerability and uncertainty by eating a basket of bread and spending hours on Etsy.” That feels uncomfortably honest.

When I finally saw my struggles in this new way, I stopped numbing and dulling. I used some recovery principles and discovered a way to finally deal with my food issues (maybe I’ll post about this later). Of course, it’s still one day at a time, but for the first time in my life, I can say that I experience the gifts of neutrality around food.

Neutrality comes from working a program of self-care, spirituality, and abstinence. You no longer run as fast as you can toward what you crave, nor do you run as fast as you can away from it. You’re neither drawn in nor repelled from. You just feel neutral. I don’t eat certain foods anymore, like cookies or cake, but I can spend an afternoon baking them with my kids. I don’t feel "better than" or self-righteous. I don’t agonize and wonder how I can sneak some. I just feel neutral. No obsessive eating. No obsessive dieting.

The key to this kind of peace for me is exactly what I think Oprah is talking about in her article. I have to be able to be still. I have to be well rested. I have to live in gratitude, not scarcity. I have to be taking care of my mind, body, and spirit.

A few months ago, in the middle of the post-Hurricane-Ike-shittiest-semester-ever, my vulnerability and fear skyrocketed, and my self-care plummeted. My eating felt completely out of control. What Oprah described in her article is exactly how I felt. Crazy, depressed, and defeated.

Now, here’s the important part: When I called one of my very closest friends to tell her about feeling out of control, she said, “Something has to give. You’ve been in crisis because of the hurricane, Ellen is sick, your grad students are in total anxiety – maybe you need to just let up on the food stuff for a while.”

For me, that’s just like saying, “Screw your sobriety – get loaded and enjoy yourself.” I mean exactly the same. If you’re struggling to understand how that can be, or to believe it – that’s OK. But I’m telling you it’s the same. When behaviors become chronic or compulsive, connections with family and friends are threatened. Depression and shame sneak in. Authenticity becomes impossible.

Since that time, my friend and I have spent some time talking about these issues. We’ve learned that, despite how similar our struggles are on the outside, what drives them is very different. Her eating is not tied to numbing herself, and that makes a huge difference in how we support each other. Now when I’m in crisis and I call her, she says, “Something has to give. Let the deadline go. Get some sleep. Go for a walk.”

I have learned that in the past, while I was “taking the edge off” of the pain and vulnerability, I was also unintentionally dulling my experiences of the good feelings, like joy and gratitude. In a very unexpected discovery, my own research taught me that there’s no such thing as selective emotional numbing. When we numb the dark, we numb the light.

As the sharp edges have started to come back, I’m learning that recognizing the discomfort of vulnerability is the greatest teacher of how to live with joy, gratitude, and grace.

As far as the Oprah issue goes, here’s my wish list:

1. I wish that the cover of Oprah’s magazine wasn’t about appearance. A more appropriate cover would have been a picture of her, alone and in hiding, shoving chocolate cake in her mouth with her eyes wildly darting back and forth, as if she were desperate or afraid. Or, maybe a picture of her hiding under the covers eating a huge bowl of mac and cheese. Weight is a symptom, let's talk honestly about the problem.

2. Body shame is the devil. In fact, we have excellent data that show that shame increases addictive behaviors. The more shame we feel, the more we do to numb it. I don’t know Oprah, but I don’t think this is about body shame for her; however, I do think that her choices about the cover contribute to the shaming of women about their bodies. I wish we could talk about our own journeys in a way that doesn’t shame or threaten others.

3. I think Oprah’s article is honest, and I appreciate the courage it took to share her struggle with the public. I do wish there was more than one line about addiction in her essay. Oprah has the power to help the country make the critical connections between addiction, vulnerability, and authenticity.

4. I’m proud to be a part of the feminist movement. I just wish we could make more space in the conversations about empowerment for the possibility that self-acceptance might include wanting to lose weight or to change your relationship with food. Just because you’re watching what you’re eating and exercising doesn’t mean that you’ve been duped by the patriarchy. That’s insulting and condescending. Fat is a feminist issue, but so is fitness.

5. I also owe so much to the recovery movement – maybe my life. I just wish that we could make more room at the table for people who thrive in their recovery in different ways. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve interviewed who tell me that they lie about their addictions in meetings so they can fit in. Fundamentalism is a real danger in any powerful movement. I think we need to be careful.

The journey to figure out our relationship with food and our body – and ultimately our authenticity – is often walked in solitude. We can and should be comforted by the fact that we are all travelers; however, if we really want to experience unity and solidarity, we have to find a way to celebrate the fact that our roads may lead in different directions. What brings me closer to authenticity and self-compassion may not work for you.

I’d love to know what you think, feel, or believe about these issues. I love healthy debate and disagreement. I don't care for name-calling, shaming, or attacks (I'll delete you without hesitation). This was tough to write and I'm sure some will struggle to comment. Kindness is important around tender issues.