If I can deceive myself at a deep level, isn’t that what I’m really surrendering to? Isn’t what I’m really beginning to recognize in my life, in what I’m going to try to surrender to, is that I can lie to myself on such a core level that I can actually steer myself the wrong direction, and not know I’m doing it? At the deepest essence of who I am, I’m trying to be comfortable in the world that I live in, yet I can actually undermine my own life by lying to myself about what I’m doing, or why I’m doing something, where I’m going, why I drink, why I drank, why I’m upset, who I’m upset at? Everything in life that I think is the reason it’s disturbing me, what I think is disturbing me could be a lie because what I’m saying is disturbing me is coming from a justification inside of me of why it’s disturbing me, but what if that justification is a lie to my own self? What if, in fact, when I call a fellow alcoholic or drug addict and I say, “I think I’m going to drink, I feel like I’m going to drink;” and then even in that conversation, I say to him, “you know I’m not going to its just I’ve got this feeling I want to drink.” I never even understand that my motive behind that is to get sympathy and attention, and if I could just call someone and say, “You know, I could use some loving right now,” I would get exactly what I need without any bullshit. I would get exactly what I need instead of, “let’s go to a meeting,” that’s not what I need. What I really need is to just be reassured right now, and maybe have someone say, “you’re important.” I’m calling you because I care about you, and I think you care about me, so can you just reassure me and let me know everything is going to be okay right now because I could really use to hear that.”
Then the person can give you what you need, then a relationship can give you what you need; but when you go to that relationship and you say, “you know you don’t tell me I’m beautiful any more, or you don’t tell me I’m handsome any more.” You go to that relationship and say, “you know we don’t go out any more, we don’t go out and have any fun, where’s our spontaneity? It seems like we lost that spark, everything’s gotten flat.” What you’re really saying is, “how do I improve the quality of life because I’m lost right now, and can you help me to see a way to go; but you can’t say that to them because that would make you sound weak, and that would make it sound like you’re not coming from the right place, but you need help. That’s, in fact, what you need, but you can’t figure out that’s what you need because you’ve lied to yourself over and over and over again. So, you create a diversion so you don’t seem weak, that diversion is really named a lie, so what we do is create a lie, so we don’t seem weak. The lie is trying to give us what we want and what we might need but we use a lie to try to get it, so how can we get what we need if the venue in which we’re trying to get it is a lie? A lie can’t heal the truth. That which we need can’t be given to us because we’ve got a foot ache but we’re telling everyone that the pain is in our back. People keep treating our back and they’re like, “man I’m working and working on it, don’t worry about it you’re doing everything for your back that you should be doing, it’s gonna get better; and they’re baffled as they’re trying to help you because you’re back isn’t getting any better, and they’re doing everything to help your back get better, which is in relationship to this disease.
They’re telling you to go to meetings, they’re telling you to talk to your sponsor, they’re telling you to stay open, stay honest, confess your faults, stay in touch with people, so you’re doing all that stuff, but you’re not telling them it’s your foot that’s killing you. So, they’re treating your back and in the disease they’re treating your craving but. it’s not the craving that’s killing you, it’s the loneliness, it’s the emptiness inside, it’s the pain you’re feeling of not being connected to anyone in a real deep level. That’s what your problem is, but you masquerade it with, “I think I want a drink, I think I’m going to get loaded, childhood issues are coming up,” but none of that’s true; but you’ve created so many lies in your life, you’ve lied to yourself so many times that you can’t even relay what you need, and that is when the greatest frustration of all in life comes when I don’t even know how to ask for help anymore because I don’t even know what needs help because I’ve lied to everybody and everything so many times that I can’t even find the truth in me for what I might need right now. That’s accepting my devastating weakness and all it’s consequences, that I can lie to me at such a deep level that I truly don’t even know when I can trust what’s coming to me about what’s making me upset. Now go through your whole life as you realize that truth, and think of all the people that have made you upset, think of all of the situations that you felt have gone wrong, think of all the societal elements that you believe are unfair, that don’t treat people right, that isn’t the right thing to do; and realize what if all those beliefs, complaints, and perceptions are coming from a lie within you, that you’ve lied to your own self to make yourself believe that those things did hurt you that way, did affect you that way when in reality those things were just another part of that lie. What was really going on is that you didn’t know how to be at peace with yourself. You didn’t know how to feel good in the world you lived in, you didn’t know how to work for anything. You didn’t know how to go through any kind of emotional pain because you wanted to run from it at any cost because you’re overly emotional sensitive. You were abnormally fearful and you can’t relay that truth and say,”I’m so abnormally fearful right now, I don’t know what to do, can you help me?” So you go on and say I’m gonna drink, or someone else goes on and says my relationship is killing me, I hate my job. In reality , I’m so afraid that I don’t measure up in life, what do you do with that? That’s the truth and that can be treated, and that can be looked at, but when it’s masqueraded by a lie, nobody can get to the truth of who we are.
So what do we do? We start relaying what’s in our mind to somebody in our lives, and we call that self honesty to self. I’m going to really find out who I am, and the way I’m going to find out who I am, is I’m going to really relay what’s going on in my mind; but I’m going to relay the things in my mind that I think are really not good, so that someone can help me to see where’s that coming from, what’s that about? That’s called self-honesty to self. If the real issue is, “hey I’m feeling really lonely and scared right now because I don’t have somebody substantial in my life, and when I feel that or look at that, I get this desire to drink because I want to escape from that feeling of loneliness and hurt because it makes me feel like something is wrong with me or I’m not lovable.” How do I deal with that issue? Then people can get to the truth and say,”we all feel that way, and it’s a lie, it’s not true,” and you’re building relationships where people care about you; and they can say to you things about the solution that you can hear and make you realize, “oh yeah, I forgot about all that other stuff. So again, we realize it’s a lie, I’m not alone, I’m building relationships for my life right now. When I’m drinking and using, I can’t build relationships for my life. I build relationships that help to accommodate whatever situation I want to get into or get out of. Those are what my relationships become about. When you’re drinking and using, relationships are purely about survival, therefore they’re completely userous that’s why they go away, that’s why we realize we’re all alone because those relationships had no depth to them, cause they were built on lies once again, userous lies.
When you get into recovery, you start building relationships on truth, on sharing pain, on sharing hope, sharing joy, not just pain sharing the good life, sharing laughter; but being able to work out your pain, being able to talk your pain with somebody else, so in fact you’re not alone. Then people can deal with that issue, when you can be that kind of honest. Even though you think you’re being honest by saying you’re drinking, that’s just a part and it masquerades the cause, then all you can treat is the symptom again. Get to the truth, that’s what this is about, truth is about accepting my devastating weaknesses and all it’s consequences, is to accept that I can lie to myself on the deepest core level, even thought I’m doing everything I can, and desiring every once of me not to lie to myself on that level. Can I accept that truth? Therefore when I start feeling squirrelly, or I start doing anything that represents an unmanageable life inside of me, I reaffirm that petition with God and say, “I’m sorry God, I’m taking it back because I can feel it, and I’m re-giving it back to you to say that my life is where it’s supposed to be. Help me see the joys in it, as it is, and help me to be that man or woman that you would have me be right now.” That’s how we learn to apply the principles, accepting our devastating weakness, and treating it with recognizing as that devastating weakness starts to come up, we give it to God immediately. That’s when we know we are truly accepting our devastating weakness by recognizing it sooner, rather than later, that we’re going the wrong way, and we get out of it because we cannot afford to go the wrong way with anything, anybody, any where, any time. That’s the golden rule. We must find the flow no matter what’s going on.
Have fun,
much love,
KC
