Hollyanne

There is a kind of tradition in Irish men with the inaugural "pint of plain" (Guinness).

The young man is making faces taking the first few sips and they say,
"Get it down yea, 'till do yea good!"
5 hours later, he is out the back yard, barfing it up.
The same men are there with him, slapping him on the back saying,
"Get it up! 'til do yea good!".

eJoshua

Good to see you, RW.

I lied all the time when I was drinking. I understand the personality shift when drinking. I was like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Soberween

Oh yea, constant fibbing. I think I call it fibbing because it doesn't sound as awful as lying. It's weird because I'm actually a very honest person by nature. Ugh, alcohol just turned me into this person that I repulsed. OMG, I just remembered that I use to act winded when my hubby would call and say I had just gotten back from the gym. This was even when I hadn't been drinking, but I didn't want him to think I was hungover. So weird. I don't even feel like I am that same person anymore.

Zencat

You bet, when I was in active addiction I lied like a rug...constantly. The biggest lie ever was to believe I am helpless to pull my act together. A lie like that has the potency to kill a person like me.

unentschieden

I don't typically lie; I value honesty above all other virtues.

The only person I lied to while being a drunk was myself. Every morning I would wake up feeling sick, miserable, and out of sorts and say, "I'm not going to drink tonight.". And I would believe it until about 10 in the morning.

One morning after I said it once again I immediately laughed out loud with true mirth and said, "well yes of course I'm going to drink tonight."

That's when I finally realized everything I told myself about alcohol was a lie: I didnt drink to relax, I didn't "deserve" a drink, I wasn't going to just have 5oz of wine, I didn't lurk around SR while drunk out of idle curiosity.

I was disgusted for thinking of myself as a self-aware individual while being capable of such a huge blind-spot.

I may only have 145 days sober, but i know for sure that I will never ever be that person again. And that's the truth!

ReadyAndAble

Oh yeah. I lied to myself most of all... though I admit I practiced on some innocent bystanders. That's one of several reasons that the decision to stop wasn't merely about my health and welfare, but became a fundamental moral choice about what kind of person I wanted to be.

Of course, it's a nice bonus that life turns out to be more fun and interesting this way.

This thread is chock full of great posts. Glad to have you back, Reggie, and that's no lie!

EternalQ

Yup, if I thought it kept people away from me, I lied. If I thought it stopped others as seeing me as a daily closet drinker, I lied. If it helped me continue my devotion to alcohol, I lied. If it helped me believe that I didn't have a problem with alcohol, I lied. It's ironic they call it truth serum, isn't it? When it is actually the liquid of lies.

brickthrowing

i was the one always making sure the recycling container was dumped into the outside one so no one would see how many of those empty beer bottles and cans were mine.

I have dumped my recycling into my neighbors down the street a few times after parties so it did not look like we drank so much.

I would tell my friends who called the next day that I had a cold or allergies if my voice sounded really gravelly.

I would drink my friend's beer and then go buy more to replace it in vain hope they hadn't noticed.

We think we are so clever sometimes. A four year old can see through it.

SoberMan2012

Dont believe anything I say (I lie) Dont believe anything you think (you lie to yourself) and dont believe what anyone else says either (they lie to themselves so they are lying to you too). 98% of every word ever spoken by any human being anytime anywhere is a lie..Listen to what people say, becuase sometimes a storyteller will say somthing amazing. That will change your life forever. Just remember we are all storytellers. to be human is to tell stories. Dogs dont tell stories but we do. Our stories are our art. And if we are storytellers and we have to tell storys I am probably better off writing my story with love. Write a happy story, based on truth. I am just suggesting that ok, you were practicing lying, it makes you happier to tell the truth (from what you said), so practice telling the truth.. Practice makes the master. If you listen closely, all of us are lying (or telling stories) non stop. So there is nothing unusual about your lying.. I lie, you lie, we all lie.

DryScotsman

I lied about:

My level of drinking.
The amount I spent on drinking.
Paying bills when I had spent the money on alcohol.
Paying the mortgage when I had spent the money on alcohol.
Fake reasons for working late when I had been in the pub all afternoon.
Pretend bills so I could borrow money from friends.
Selling my personal items on eBAY to fund my drinking.
I invented a whole scenario about a friend having a serious illness so I could "accompany him for tests etc" and went to the pub all day.
Taking money from my children's piggy banks in order to buy a cheap bottle of booze.

It is a totally shameful list but the last item is the one that makes me cry and hurt the most and ensures I will never drink again.

kellyrally

I have often caught myself lying about my nasty hangovers. Often hiding myself inside my room while recovering and downplaying the effects that alcohol has on me.

Gottalife

Funny thing about the steps. At some point in the process I became a liar that couldn't lie, a thief that couldn't steal, a deceiver that could no longer engage in deception. How did that happen? I didn't change them, I suddenly found that trying to engage in those activities and others, made me incredibly uncomfortable, threatened my new found sobriety even. I learned my old ideas no longer worked.

FBL

Nice to see you back, Reggie! Hope you can make it stick this time. Being honest with yourself is just one of the great rewards of living sober

Sapling

You have to do the work yourself...But it's good to have someone more "hands on" guiding you....Those promises are what kept me going...And they do come true...And that book has a lot more promises than the ninth step promises. Give it all you got...You'll be amazed what it does to your lying problem. You'll be amazed by a lot of things.

aussieblue

Welcome back Reggie
I recently blew 9 months sober and the first thing I done was put my bottle in the cabinet where I used to keep the "cooking wine" and told my husband I was only on my second glass . The lies are always about how much I was drinking. I hate that person.

least

Yes. Always. Even when I didn't have to...

MsJax

I always lied when I was a drunk.

About the amount I drank. About who I was with. About saying I felt good, when I was so drunk/hungover I could barely hold my head up. Making drunk plans and then having to follow through on them even though I didn't remember any of it. Planned a whole dinner for about 20 while in a blackout and had to follow through on that. God only knows the sh*t I'd make up in a blackout, total lies. I wrote a blog post a while back about honesty in all my affairs. I really strive for that. I like being on here because I never feel I have to make stuff up. Sometimes I will catch myself saying something that isn't 100% true & I stop myself now and correct it. Or the next day I will just humbly tell the person that I had talked with that what I had said was not the truth & fix it. It is hard being truthful sometimes but it really is the best.

Ranger

Reggie - My entire life was a lie while I was drinking. I would have stared Jesus Christ in the eyes while I told him I'd only had two.

Unfortunately, not all of that dishonesty evaporated with my last drink. When the alcoholic wave washed away, it left a lot of personal debris in its wake.

zanzibar

No I never lied when I was drinking. Like "H" I didn't.

DayTrader

Oh God...... the promise that I would be able to go through life and be honest with ppl was one of THE big factors in me sticking with and getting serious about recovery and AA.

Like you, it wasn't necessarily that I lied about what I thought were big things - I could see how I was afraid and I lied thinking I had to to be protected. But for me, I lied about damn near everything.....and as you put it, flaky as all hell. I hated that about me.

Here's where I am now on the "why" part of it: I was doing my best to get and keep a happy "normal" life. I wasn't doing such a good job though, and I knew it. Felt like I was a good guy but plagued by failure. I also derrived most if not all of my self worth from outside things or from others. If you all liked me, I was ok. If you were mad at me or upset with me, I'd feel like a bigger failure than usual. Since that hurt......I couldn't afford for you to know the truth about me (for fear you'd reject me or cut me down) so I started portraying myself as I thought others wanted me to be. I knew a lot of ppl so that meant I had to have a lot of hats ready. I also had to be careful what lies I told as the ppl in my life got together from time to time and my stories couldn't contradict one another TOO much. Live that way, juggling that many balls all the time and it gets to be a habit..then it becomes "natural."

Breaking that particular "addiction" hasn't come easily nor without it's fair share of pain. Hell, I just lied to one of my sponsees tonight. We were on the phone, I told him I had to hit the bathroom and I'd call him right back. Really, I wanted to order a pizza....but I didn't want to tell him that. I don't know why......it was reactionary to lie. I didn't even think about it. It just rolled off my tongue.

I called him back and we continued then finished our conversation and hung up. 10 minutes later I was calling him again to ask if he needed a laugh - when I told him he'd get to laugh AT me, with me, he got excited. LOL. .....I came clean.....he laughed his a$$ off. (because he does the same damn thing sometimes)

The BB has a line in it on p 61 that reads: isn't he a victim of the delusion he can wrest satisfaction from life if only he manages well?

To me, that constant lying was me trying to wrest satisfaction from life by managing everyone's opinion of me. Just like drinking....it sure as hell wasn't working very well. To the contrary, it was making my life more unmanageable and painful than ever. It was one of those "old tools" that I had to get willing to set aside. I needed to start practicing a different and more healthy way of living.

Lots and lots of practice and I still mess up from time to time (today being a good example) but I'm a helluva lot better than I was. I have to say, being (mostly) honest is darn rewarding and sooooooooo much less stressful! It's a HUGE part of my mental/emotional sobriety and, for me, it's relapse material.