“There’s a lot of talk about the importance of being honest in all our affairs and relationships. I really don’t know where to start it’s been so long since I’ve been honest it’s almost easier to lie.”
There are two major challenges concerning dishonesty that must be met and overcome in order to enter into a healthy recovery.
1. The dishonesty and lying has to stop. Unfortunately, for many people, this has become a habit. This behavior needs to be ‘unlearned’and the habit broken.
2. We must also overcome the fear of the consequences of once again being truthful
Being dishonest can easily become the standard of action, or way of life for most alcoholics or addicts. We deceive ourselves and we lied to others. We lie about how much we used, and how often we used. We hid our feelings and emotions, or became distant from our relationships, perhaps not in all areas, but certainly in terms of our substance use.
We lied about where we went and what we had been doing. It’s a way of staking our claim to our right to continue drinking or using drugs. The lies, self deception, and self delusions were created for the for the purpose of allowing us to continue to use. Somehow we needed it all to make sense.
Sometimes it was not even our intention to deceive. But it is simply that our thought processes had become so clouded and confused and distorted, that our sense of reality was way off base and we no longer made sense.
Many people have discovered that there is a tendency to continue to be untruthful it just doesn’t go away when your substance abuse stops.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Agreed! Lying & dishonesty always starts at a very small proportion and gradually goes big and so big that it becomes the way of life of a person. Being honest may be hard but it always keep guilt at bay. And being honest to oneself is lot more important than anything else. It keep checks on you.like u started lying n u thought its easy same way one can start being honest and think its not that tough!!
This is equally true for the family members of one who abuses or is addicted to alcohol. We need to stop lying to ourselves about it not being all that bad or something everyone does on holidays or… And, like you said, “sometimes it’s not even our intention to deceive…” This is certainly the case for the codependent — they don’t even realize they’re doing it but don’t understand what “it” is, thus are unable to effectively deal with it. http://www.hbo.com/addiction is a great website that explains addiction. This link offers an explanation of what happens in the codependents brain, which, of course, contributes to the problem.http://tiny.cc/Hauxd
thanks for the post.
Yes, dishonesty is the only truth most of addicts know and understand. We only come to the truth one day at a time when we begin to deal with the wreckage of our past drinking and drugging behaviour.
The important part of remaining sober is to not create more wreckage into the future.
Unfortunately the skill of lying gets more positive press then the skill of telling the truth and being a person of intregity. Intregity seems to be a lost art in the modern culture of “me”. In sobreity, we build on intregity and the concept of doing the right thing, even when no one is looking. Because in sobriety, we know that without our Higher Power, Creator, God, we would be nothing but lost in our addiction again.
Yeah. I detest dishonesty in other people but once i began recovery I saw how much **I** had been dishonest while using. It has to stop
I agree lying and dishonest are evil command that people always do. We must learn to control ourselves to do the right thing even it is hard to do. Lets make it a habit not to do these evil commands. Lets start with ourselves and family especially our children. I noticed every children today it is easy to them to tell a lie and dishonest to their parents.
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That is one of the first signs that you are addicted and one of the last habits to go. The most important thing is being honest with others around you, especially loved ones, and it will force you to be honest with yourself.