How Honest Are You
 

Hello again.

So in my ongoing and perhaps slightly obsessive quest to understand the lure and effects of alcohol, I have another question.

How honest are alcoholics when they drink? I've heard that drinking often loosens your inhibitions and allows you to say your true feelings, so when you are truly under the grip of your addiction, how much of what you say to you loved ones is true?

Honestly, hard to say because so much of my thinking was skewed. Many of my thoughts and words held no merit. I was easily irritated. I couldn't put my finger on why and would blame others, take it out on my loved ones. The problem stemmed from within me. I was broken and not ready to fix myself so I placed blame and hurt others. It isn't right, and I'm sorry for what I did. Try to remember that alcoholics are sick people with sick thinking. Half of what we say is drivel. Half of what we say comes from internal turmoil that we ourselves can't understand.

Not to mention a lot of the times not even being able to remember what was said. I had that problem sometimes.

Well, when I drank, truth wasn't really a priority. Effect (on others and myself) was the priority. If it made me feel good, others feel the way I wanted them to feel, and if it was true (or if I thought it was true), all well and good. If not true, no biggie.

Oh, I meant it. I was so self-centered and selfish, it was ALL about me, and when I drank, I let everyone know it. Thankfully, recovery from alcoholism, rather than just putting down the drink, brought with it many changes in thinking and feeling as well - I hope I'm a better person who wouldn't say those things today.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

I must have told my friends exactally what I thought because some aren't my friends anymore. I was a classic drink-and-dial alcoholic. I would call anyone who would listen unfortunetly i rarely remembered my conversations. I made alot of social plans, like going to lunch or helping someone paint. All of which I had to cancel because I was too hunover or already starting my drinking for the day.
I didn't tell my husband my honest thoughts. i just became a great philosopher and blah blahed on about unimportant things that just made me more depressed! I still stuggle today to tell him everything I am thinking, but I am working on it.

He said talking to me was "killing him" and when I asked if I was the reason why he drank, he said yes.

I never stopped talking to him because when he was sober he said it wasn't true but that is the stuff that haunts me and feeds my guilt about the reason for his addiction and his death.

You're not the reason he drank. It might sound good in our heads, and he might have believed it when he said it, but our truth and the truth are often two very different things.

Alcoholism is a disease. Perhaps that's not a truth he was willing to consider.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

Alcoholics are always looking for a reason to blame others for our mistakes. Don't take it personally. It isn't you. It is his choice. He is passing blame, period.

I can't say that I was more honest when I was drinking, just less inhibited. I was also perhaps rude and stupid when drinking. But I really don't think I was more honest, maybe more direct, or too direct. Anyway, I can be more honest now cause I'm thinking more clearly and can remember what I said and did last night.

I disagree with the notion that alcohol consumption uninhibits people to speak and behave truthfully. my personal experience with alcohol is that it throroughly and intensely distorts reality and compels people to say and do things that they would otherwise not say or do. If a person is by nature gentle, sensitive, considerate, as an example, his or her insensitive, aggressive, and inconsiderate behaviors while under the influence of alcohol do not accurately define him or her. Just food for thought.

Q

"I blame you for driving 160 mph in the wrong lane with a bag over my head." Same logic (lack of it). Choose any other insane analogy.

No one can make me drink. No one can make me sober. It happens that I have a predisposition towards alcohol. That's not my fault, that's not your fault. I don't have a predisposition toward self immolation. That's not your fault nor mine.

You can make me happy or unhappy if I give you permission. Anything else is within me and has little to do with you.

warren

Touche.

hmm

Well honesty has been a big thing I've had to look at this week. It is very hard for me to be honest about certain things, especially about how I feel. When I drank I was much more able to simply tell people how I felt. I see alot of active alkies who can't talk honestly about feelings when they are sober and can when they are drunk.

One of the challenges for me in sobriety is that I will have to learn how to be honest with my feelings without a drink. Otherwise I will be likely to use alchohol as a solution to that problem if fI don't learn another solution.

I have also learned this week that I need to look at right speach. right speach requires that I ask myself two questions....is it true and is it HELPFUL.

Just my experience to date....this is an area I have A LOT to learn about.

I must say, while an active alcoholic, honesty wasn't my biggest attribute.

Me too! I would lie about everything-when I drank, how much, what kind of drinks I had. There was no reason to trust me.

90% was ********.

Saying you are the reason I drink is my warped way of justifying my excessive drinking to myself. It's easier to blame you then own up to my obsession for oblivion because of my inability to face life. For me to believe you are the reason I drink is insane. For you to believe it is equally insane.

"Your the reason I drink" is a lie.

contrarichard...Welcome
:wave:

When I was in my bottle I would say what ever it took to get what I want, sometimes it was a lie, other times it was the truth.

I lied to myself, I lied to the world!

I said what ever it took to take the blame off of me, whether it was fact or fiction!!!

I always blamed other people for my drinking, looking back on that honestly which I am fully capable of today, the only person I ever could blame for my drinking was me!!!!

If I ever started to drink again it would be my fault and no one elses!!!