Things That Seem to Have Nothing to Do with Sobriety (But Actually Do)

One of the things I have noticed through the years has been the way certain ways of acting can trigger very old patterns of behavior. For example, bad choices in relationships or doing something that isn’t 100% on the up and up – it’s like a little warning bell gets set off.  When I was drinking I felt pretty darn comfortable lying to protect my addiction. As far as my brain was concerned, it was about surviving. I couldn’t imagine life without some chemical to change how I feel.  But in sobriety, lying is really uncomfortable. Even little white lies.

This doesn’t mean I let everything fly out of my mouth unfiltered (face it, some people don’t want to hear the truth), but it does mean that I don’t consciously make a decision to deceive anyone to protect a behavior I know isn’t healthy.  Honesty can be a very freeing thing – it lets you be you, after years or decades of trying to be something else. Maybe you know what I mean – times when you feel like you have to protect your ego (sometimes thought of as your reputation). It might not have been outright lies, but smoke and mirrors. The underlying motivator for me was a fear of seeming less-than, as if life were some sort of a contest of with me against the rest of the human race. Somehow I lived with the idea that I just wouldn’t measure up.  I can blame it on critical parents or just being a little weird as a kid, but as an adult, I have a choice to make. I can either accept who I am and the fact I’m a human being and not perfect, or I can spend a lot of energy protecting my ego, my reputation, and living in fear of being “revealed.”