Nothing to hide
Tonight as I was giving my daughter a bath, my wife was running around the house, packing for a trip we are making to family over Thanksgiving. It was as mundane and sweet and simple and
everyday" an evening in the life of a family as one could ask for. I heard my wife opening closets, drawers, moving things around, looking for clothes and stuff to pack. And I realized I had nothing to hide - there were no empty bottles of alcohol stuffed in the back of my sock drawer, hidden in my son's old backpack, etc ad infinitum.
It was such a deep deep relief to not worry about being caught or found out that I wanted to reflect on it. So now, after everyone is in bed asleep, I sit on my couch and allow myself to remember the terrible feelings of deceit with which I operated in my drinking days. I would always fill the wine bottles up with water at the end of the night - leaving just enough red in the bottom that you wouldn't notice the pale color, unless you looked hard. I remember using food coloring on more than one occasion. I remember the horrible anxiety I would feel when people were over and I wasn't there - worried they might try to pour a drink from the bottle of vodka and realize it was just water. I remember driving all the way to my parents house to get rid of empty bottles that I had forgotten to trash and left in the trunk of their car I borrowed. Empties in briefcases, under couch cushions, above cabinets, behind books, stuffed in bushes, thrown out windows, snuck around, hidden here and there and everywhere in my life. A life of empties.
So many many many lies, so much deceit. In the end I was living the pain and shame of a liar - I HAD to lie to drink as much as I did, it was and should have been unacceptable to drink that much. And the psychic pain, the soul pain, that lying was causing me eventually became unbearable and was one of the main reasons I quit. I just can't lie like that anymore.
Now I am allowed to feel the opposite feeling. Now I get peace. I get simple, clear as an arctic lake peace, clam and confident. There's nothing to hide - so nothing is hidden. It's remarkable. It's terrific. And yet, difficult as it is to quit, it's so simple of an equation. When you stop lying and stop hiding, there's nothing to lie or hide. And your life is yours again, finally.