When I got sober people began to be very open with me about things. People I didn't really know very well. They knew my story because I live in a small town and I always thought maybe they felt that since I'd had some personal and legal trouble that they wouldn't be judged.
But I also thought that maybe people had always talked that way and that I had just never actually listened to anybody or cared what they were saying in my drinking days. I honestly still don't know which it was.