"No one could live such an irresponsible, immature life as I had without consequences."
I had to learn that actions have consequences. It was an irritating lesson. I make it a point to share the part of my story that details how my life continued to get worse for a while after I quit drinking. I had spent many years planting explosives in hidden areas of my life and the fact that - sans alcohol - that I wasn't planting any new explosives was no help when I triggered an old explosive. I had to become a sapper and clean out the old bombs before my life began an upward trajectory.
"Admitting that I am wrong or that I do not know is difficult for me."
SuperK often points out that I never admit that I'm wrong. I often defend myself by saying that if I ever find myself in a situation where I am - in fact - wrong - I'll be the first to admit it. This goes over about as well as you can imagine. For most normal people this would be a clue to stop saying what I'm saying but my abnormality is well-established at this point.
When I was selling process control instrumentation to process control engineers - people who had four year college degrees in process control engineering - I tried to hide the fact that I've never seen the engine in my car and I am not making this up. It's in the middle of the car. I know it's there because the car goes places after I turn it on and it makes a lot of noise when I accelerate but it's under a cowling of some kind that I'm afraid to remove because there's nothing in there that I need to see, really, and one of my fundamental rules of life is Don't Take Something Apart that You Might Not Know How to Put Back Together, a rule that has served me well. I'm afraid to walk into Lowe's or Home Depot because I think a security guard would corner me and say something like: "I'm sorry, sir, but we're going to have to ask you to leave the premises." It's clear to everyone that I have no idea what most of the stuff in there is used for. What? Do I look like I'm shopping for a router? I look like a potential lawsuit. "Clueless man hurt trying to turn off the router he mistakenly turned on."
Where was I . . . . ? My tendency when I was newly sober was to try to hide my ignorance if I was asked a question that I could not answer. I avoided lying as much as possible but I noticed I would remain silent or direct the conversation elsewhere. Then I discovered this simple but magical line: "I don't know but I can find out for you." The response to this statement was almost always magical as well. People were very happy to be talking to someone who admitted that he didn't know the answer to something. A few times there was some manifest frustration but I would just say: "If you have a minute I can call our engineering department and get the answer for you right now." That usually shut them the fuck up. Seriously, though, nobody knows everything and everybody loathes those of us who pretend that we do and then proceed to make some situation worse. It is important to note that when I learned something new I tried to . . . you know . . . remember it so that as my career progressed I was stumped with less regularity. That, at least, accrues to my credit.
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