"The Big Lie"

I was at a speaker meeting today and the chair talked about how her disease lies to her. I almost cheered. First off, because she was chairing an AA meeting and talked about 'other' forms of alcohol--the powder kind, the kind you smoke (cocaine & marijuana) and did so in a manner respectful to the meeting. But more than that because she talked about the disease. This was a woman who really gets it, who understands that the substance abuse aspect of our lives is in some ways only the smallest part of the problem. That we drink and/or use are symptoms of the disease, not the disease itself.

The speaker talked about the committee in her head, all those unhealthy voices that can lead us astray. She talked, too, about how her disease lies to her. When I was called on to share, I picked up on that thread. My disease lies to me, too. All. The. Time. It tells me that I'm worthless. It tells me that I don't belong. It tells me that I'm not an addict/alcoholic. Never mind that when I drank, I drank to get drunk--or, "alcoholically" as we say. Never mind that I spent the better part of nine years almost constantly stoned. It tells me that I've gotten enough sobriety time under my belt that I've proved I don't really have a problem and that I don't need a sponsor or to go to meetings or to work the steps. It tells me that I don't need help, that what I need is to man up and take care of things myself. And, by the way, if I don't or can't, I'm a sack of shit.

That's probably the biggest lie that my disease tells me, is that I can do it myself. Sometimes I think I should write a little note and carry it around with me: if you're thinking you can do it alone, that's the best indicator that you can't.

I remember having a dream right after I started my Recovery. I was in a house filled with people. I knew, somehow, that all these people were me. That is to say, they were physical manifestations of all the different voices in my head--on my committee. At the time, I was keeping a dream journal and doing a lot of research on dream analysis. I still keep that as a hobby, by the way. One of the more interesting aspects of dream analysis is the idea that anytime you dream about a house, the house represents your self. It was a great day for me when I dreamed about leaving behind an old, decrepit mansion and setting out in search of a new place to call home, but I digress.

A lot of people relate to this concept of the committee in their head, the voices that lie to us. Something I've found very cool about Recovery is not that the committee has gone away (it hasn't, though the voices are a little quieter these days), but that there are new voices in it. I now hear a voice inside myself that counters those that spout failure. When one voice inside tells me I can't, another pipes up and tells me I can. When I'm feeling defeated, one of those new voices will tell me that I can succeed. When the old guard on the committee says I'm fine and don't need to worry so much about working the program, to back off and put my feet up, someone else up there takes them aside and says, "there, there, now, why don't you just sit down and be quiet for awhile."

My disease still tells me lies, but I can recognize them as such now. The committee is still there, but they don't run things anymore. There are new voices, healthy ones, that balance out and help me to not be the self-centered destructive force I used to be. It's a blessing. And a relief, too, because just as I don't have to get loaded anymore, I don't have to do that anymore either.