as sick as our secrets

hi all. just reread last night's post. realize that i missed something important. how most people who struggle with addictions work very hard to keep it a secret. i can and should only talk about my own experience...so, that said, i know that after i stopped drinking their were some of my closest and dearest friends a little surprised. many in different but the same words told me that they felt bad, that they didnt know how bad it was, or that they didnt see it.

the amount of time and energy that drinking and then covering up my drinking took up is hard to really convey. i guess it varied. different times in my life were worse then others. but one thing was constant--no one knew how much i drank but me. i was hyper aware of how much i drank and in front of people and then how much i drank when i got home. i generally tried to keep it a little normal...i was aiming for people to think that i was a heavy social drinker...then, alone, i would get home and drink like i wanted to which in retrospect was until i passed out.

it was not always like this. i say this bc i hear people say that they dont always get drunk, they dont always pass out. i understand the desire to qualify, to contextualize, to explain each and every drink. i understandt his perfectly.

the point i wanted to make is that the secrets that alcoholics, and addicts, keep to themselves are a symptom of the disease. people around us cant and shouldnt be held responsible for seeing a truth that we ourselves are distorting. they say the truth will set you free. on AA coins it says to thine own self be true. this is the core. this is the work.

the first time i said i was an alcoholic out loud and in front of people, i cried. i did not cry bc i was sad about it or ashamed. i cried bc it felt so true. i cried because i knew i did not have to lie anymore. yes, i was scared but also i was liberated. for all of us, clean or sober, healthy or sick--there are truths that will set us free. the trick is figuring out what those truths are. maybe we know some of our truths from the beginning and maybe others we know, get scared of, push down, ignore, deny and then finally exhausted with the effort it takes to not know what we know--we give in and surrender. heres to another night i write this sober, another morning i will begin not sick and not ashamed. now that is some progress. xxk