When I was growing up, one of my favorite ploys was to leave something at a friend’s house, in order to “have to” return for it. I “forgot” things every time I spent the night with a pal. What I was really doing was to lie on a regular basis, and assume all the parents involved weren’t onto me. “What? Me lie?” Uh-huh—over and over again.
That was, I’m pretty sure, a fairly common childhood act of mischief, but what it managed to set up for me was the ease with which I would lie about anything and everything.
Fast forward to adulthood. The lying didn’t stop. In fact, I became rather proficient in trying to fool myself. If whatever I wanted in the short term was contrary to my better judgement, guess which one won out? “Yes, but…” and “just this once…” became familiar refrains. “I’ll start tomorrow” continues to show up, although I’m better these days at catching it and recognizing it for the lie it is. Ah, growing up!
So, how many ways do I continue to try to fool myself? Catching myself in the act and recognizing what I’m doing in the moment is the challenge. I do have some successes to build on, though. Even though I refused to see the truth for years, I finally admitted to myself and others that my drinking had progressed to the point of being unable to stop for more than a few days. There’s a name for people in that position, which I had to claim in order to start healing: alcoholic. There was such a stigma to that word, I tried desperately to convince myself I hadn’t joined the ranks of such “losers”.
Those “losers” were guides for me in learning that it’s simply an affliction which can be overcome, as long as I would be truthful about it. The process is teaching me to be honest with myself. Not “has taught”, but “is teaching”. It’s an ongoing process of looking at my motives and questioning my justifications.
There is no “accidentally” in this task—it’s all “on purpose”.
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