DoubleBarrel, I agree with you.
In fact, I have a tough time with the idea that there is anything particularly unique about people with addictions or a history of addictions, at all. I truly do not feel that there is anything special about us, or that having an addiction is the worst thing in the world, worse than all other things (it's bad, don't get me wrong, but is it worse than, say, liver cancer? ALS? Autism?).
Which is why I don't like to go on and on about my "sobriety" or my "recovery" as if somehow those things are different from, or on a higher plane than, the struggles ALL humans have in their lives.
I have found that my own mental health and life are vastly improved by not viewing myself as some sort of unique creature, specially favored by God (who lets the guy with ALS die a horrible death while saving me? I don't think so.) or cut off from my fellow human beings by an experience no one else can possibly understand.