“The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.”—Hannah Arendt
It’s sometimes remarked with a wry smile that one definition of an alcoholic is someone who lies even when they don’t have to. Let’s call this compulsive need to dissemble, “radical dishonesty.” Not a compulsion any of us would really like to live with, right? But, many of us in recovery will shake our heads at the extent to which we were once the poster child for radical dishonesty. Our self-induced suffering knew few boundaries to begin with—our compulsive deceit just pushed those boundaries to the further edges of the horizon…
The dance of deceit is an ever more complex dance to perform—as we prance away from the simpler patterns that would otherwise represent our truth. As users—out of shame or fear of legal consequences—we burrowed ever deeper into our hidden foxholes. When we finally got rousted, ousted and busted, the cobwebs of our lies seemed to lace us in their gray tangle. Over time—and with much help—we started to brush off the cobwebs and disentangle ourselves from the mess of our deceit. But habits die awfully hard—and the habit to lie was once our second nature…
Opening up to others and getting real with our stories is one key to a healthy recovery. Embellishment is good entertainment. But when we distort and hide even the simplest stories behind a veil of falsehoods, entertainment devolves into a hollow script of furtive secrets.
Pill-popping, snorting, spiking, sucking, toking, glugging and other chemical endeavors numbed us to the full pain and foolishness of our deceitful behavior. As we cleaned up our chemical dependencies, we began to deep-clean the behaviors our chemicals had enabled. Tough stuff, but essential if we were to remain on the path of recovery.
Today might be a good day to reflect on one of the dubious stories we may still be telling ourselves and others. Let’s take a minute to hold that tall tale up to the light. Perhaps it still serves a worthwhile purpose. However, perhaps it does not—and we can now safely discard it without losing our sense of self. Each of us would be the best judge of our own stories in this regard…
Was it perhaps anxiety-provoking to confront a deceitful story we had been clinging to? That would be pretty natural! Let’s handle that right away with a powerful breathing method recommended by the Lung Institute, amongst others. It’s called Pursed Lips Breathing, or PLB. PLB has numerous health benefits, including a reduction of stress and anxiety:
Stand or sit, with shoulders down and relaxed. Inhale slowly through the nose for two seconds with your mouth closed. No need to labor for a deep breath—just take a normal, gentle inhale. Exhale through the mouth for four seconds (the extended time period is very important). When exhaling, purse your lips as if giving a kiss. While exhaling, keep the breath slow and steady. No force. Repeat ten to twenty times.
It feels great to relax out of holding on to a needless deceit.