By James R

Desire

First of all, I will be honest in the fact that I completely forgot about writing this article until around a week before it was due. I have been sitting here (at work) thinking about honesty in recovery and what exactly to write about and have been staring at the computer screen for about ten minutes with nothing coming to mind. Of course, when I was using I was honest with no one. The person I spent probably the most time lying to was myself. I would tell myself constantly; “I got this.”, “This will be the last time.”, “My life is not that unmanageable.”, “I can quit any time I want!” and I really believed myself. For me, one of the biggest areas that I have seen growth in recovery wise is self honesty. Not to say I don’t lie to myself often or that I am some pious recovered addict, but the longer I stay clean and attempt to work a program of recovery, the harder it is to tell myself the same lies time and time again. The little voice in the back of my mind that used to cosign all of my lies has gotten softer and has been replaced with a louder and sterner voice that loves to call bullshit on me when I try to deceive myself. I started to work on being more honest with myself, finally starting to feel some relief, and then you guys told me that the work was far from being done. I had to become honest with others, including but not limited to, my sponsor! This became most important when it was time to work steps. If I can’t be honest with myself and my sponsor then what is the point of step work? If I am not working steps honestly then I will eventually just be an addict who is abstinent, which is a miserable way for me to live. Repeating all of the same behaviors and patterns that got me here in the first place leaves me with two options; relapse or have an unfulfilled life. I have seen the change in other addict’s lives around me who are striving to work an honest program, and that gives me hope today. I started seeing that true change in my life once I started honestly attempting to work, practice, and apply the steps in my daily life.