April 6

HONESTY MONTH: DAY 6: “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters” ― Albert Einstein

Another “Kelly-ism”: I have discovered that many of us want to believe in “white lies” and shades of gray in telling the truth…I don’t buy it. I believe that truth is truth; anything not true is NOT true…there are no degrees of honesty. Something is either true or it isn’t. Now I will agree that many truths are pertinent to the time, place and attitude of the person who is determining their relationship with the truth, but it is either black or white, and I don’t think a “little lie” is possible. A lie is a lie. If I am not honest with you because I fear your disapproval or some other result that seems unpleasant to me, it is just dishonest. No more, no less. This seems harsh to quite a few folks, all addicts, I will admit. But that is because we have a huge stake in holding on to dishonesty and deception, if not delusion. These are the earmarks of addiction and denial. I would love to say that these are okay, or that we can maintain these in our journey through this deal, but I find them to be one of the most harmful things we can hang onto. So I have to develop a strong bullshit detector or I am doomed. I may lie to you and stay around here, but not for long. My ability to lie to ME is incredibly well-founded and reinforced by many years of practice. I cannot afford the dubious luxury of buying into my own crap. Therefore, I will work just as hard to point it out to those with whom I am working or who ask for my opinion or input. I find that those who want to blur the edges of the truth with things that really don’t matter have a very hard time being real when it does. So we have to stop all forms of deception or we cannot find the line any longer. Then we end up loaded and don’t know what happened. I find this usually happens when I begin to withdraw from people and meetings and stay in isolation more and more often. I begin to tell myself a story that is really interesting, so I have to take it to a meeting and talk about it in phone calls…that breaks the pattern for me. I can create a story out of thin air, so it will always be important to run that stuff by someone else. I can get batshit crazy in about an hour, if left to my own devices and I am spiritually falling through the cracks. I really believed I would find a comfortable rut with this recovery thing by now, but see that it is constant and never-ending. But so is the joy and love and peace and happiness and contentment…wow! Contentment…what a great concept for a chronic malcontent like me…woohoo! So I will remain as open and honest as I know how and question myself and my stories whenever I am not in a great place. Today I am in a great place and on my way!