Lies of Omission

 Our meeting leader this morning was a woman who had a couple of years sobriety before drinking again.  Luckily, it was a one day binge and she immediately told the group and started over.  Her topic was dishonesty - lying in the more common vernacular.  I share too much at this meeting but I can't hold my tongue when we're discussing lying.  This is a much beloved topic for me - I was a dedicated, committed, highly practiced, and innately skilled liar.  Trying to transform myself into one of those disgusting people who tell the truth is like telling LeBron James not to play basketball.  It was incomprehensible for a while.  I didn't see the point.  So my transition from from lying to . . . well, not lying . . . was long and slow, sluggish and labored.  It is, in fact, on-going.  I'm amazed at how often my brain suggests a little lie to get out of a tight spot.  I don't often succumb but the fact that the suggestions are so insistent shows me I have a lot of work still to do.

This woman is one of the kindest, gentlest souls in our local A.A. community so her share prodded some other women to talk about their relapses.  I loved the honesty.  One of the most difficult things I ever did was to admit to an on-going drug relapse six months into my alcohol sobriety.  I was so dishonest I took sobriety chips of 30 days and 3 months while I was smoking weed.  I wasn't smoking it everyday so my brain told me it wasn't that bad while adding - for good measure - the lie that the compulsion to drink was real while the weed-smoking was not compulsive at all.  This is the logic of a compulsive liar, by the way.

The oomph of the discussion centered around lies of omission, how this woman reached out to her sponsor immediately and followed up immediately on the suggestion to share the new sobriety date with her home group, immediately.  I used to believe that a lie was when you deliberately used false words or actions to deceive someone.  I was quite annoyed to find out that a lie is misleading someone whether or not I actually used lying words.  I thought I had a loophole but rigorous honesty centers around what the listener ends up believing and not whether some cleverly manipulated words were used to sidestep the truth and aid in the deception.  

Come to think of it that would be a good nickname for me: Loophole Seaweed.  Maybe LoopHole SeaWeed if I decide to start up a career as a rapper.

It made me ponder a recent spat with SuperK, a spat so small as to be almost inconsequential.  Sometimes these small relationship spats really aren't very clear cut - it's often not the case where one party behaves terribly and the other one bears no blame at all.  With this one I wasn't sure whether my small, glancing amends at the time was enough or whether I owed another, bigger one or whether I had done my part and I should leave the situation alone to give my wife time to work stuff out on her own.  

Men - the Fixers of the Universe.  Our motto is: "Don't tell me anything unless you want me to fix it for you."  We're not at all slowed down if we don't know how to fix it or if there's nothing to be fixed.

I was conflicted so I called Willie.  He had no helpful advice - he never does - but that's not the point.  I took something inside me and I shared it.  I showed it the light of day.  I didn't know if I was behaving honestly, semi-honestly, quasi-honestly, or dishonestly.  So I laid the facts on the table to see what someone else thought.  My time in The Program has given me many friends that kind of co-sponsor me as I co-sponsor them.  He regurgitated some barely digested pablum about intuitively knowing how to handle situations that used to baffle me and pausing when agitated and you get the point.

All is well . . . along as I stay honest.