Endigar 1025
From Courage to Change of Sep 10:
My denial was so thick when I came to Al-Anon that I didn’t even know there were alcoholics in my life. Al-Anon helped me feel safe enough to look at the truth. As my denial began to lift, I was horrified at the lies I had told myself and others.
But I went from one extreme to the other and became a compulsive truth teller. It became my mission to inform anyone who would listen about what was really happening. I labeled this “honesty,” but I was actually expressing my anger and scorn for the alcoholic — and crying out for help.
Al-Anon has shown me that my view of a situation is only the “truth” as seen from my tiny corner of the universe. I can’t undo past denial by blaming the alcoholic for having a disease that has affected both our lives, or by bitterly insisting that I now know the real truth. But I can forgive my extreme responses to extreme situations, knowing that I did the best I could at the time. Today I can be honest and still be gentle with myself.
Today’s Reminder
When I stop worrying about how others see things and focus on myself, I gain more serenity than I have ever known. I cannot control the disease of alcoholism, but I can step away from its grip by honestly examining my motives and feelings.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
END OF QUOTE—————————————
I wondered whether I qualified for Al-Anon. But I read and listened and realized that my own deceased grandfather, who died of his Alcoholism when my mother was a 17-year-old girl, had an untreated impact on her that echoed through her parenting of me and my siblings. Then my stepson came into my life when he was 16 and was dealing with continuous battles with addiction. Other later developments made it clear that I carried the impact of alcoholism and addiction through lines of blinding intimacy. Once I had my own alcoholism treated into remission, I had to face the reality that my life had been contaminated by the dysfunction that comes from loving those afflicted.
I also learned not to accept “truth” from someone who was not truly invested in my wellbeing. I remember learning to distrust the word “honesty” because of it being weaponized against me. This was an early obstacle in my own recovery from alcoholism that I had to overcome. I would hear, “I just want you to be honest with me,” to be “I just want to collect enough evidence to win in court, to subjugate your dignity, and to indoctrinate you to love in defeat.”
When that fog began to lift, the first rays of truth felt threatening. I lurched from one extreme to the other, trying to make up for lost time by telling “my truth” to anyone who’d listen. I thought I was practicing a more powerful honesty, but often I was really venting anger, shaming the dysfunctional players in my life, or just pleading for someone to understand my pain.
Al-Anon has taught me that truth isn’t a blunt instrument. My perspective is still just that — my own small corner of reality. Honesty without compassion can wound others and, ultimately, myself. I can acknowledge that my early reactions were survival strategies, born from confusion and fear, and forgive myself for not knowing better at the time.
Now I understand that serenity grows not from proving I’m right, but from examining my own motives. I can still tell the truth — but now, I aim to do it with gentleness, humility, and awareness of my own limits. The disease of alcoholism and its surrounding dysfunction are beyond my control, but my responses are mine to tend. When I let go of the need to control how others see things, I free up the space to focus on my own healing.
That shift — from weaponizing truth to embodying it — has brought me more peace than I could have imagined when I first arrived.
Daily Reprieve 
Leave a comment