Lying about your alcohol consumption was touched on in a meeting I recently attended. Someone shared that when a person tells you how rarely they drink, itโs a surefire sign that they drink far more than they are letting on. I donโt know if I agree with that. I’m not sure it applies to everyone. For me? Yeah, I lied about how much I drank to just about everybody who ever asked me and a few who didnโt. I lied because I cared far too much about what other people thought of me. I still do to some degree. While it was no secret to most people that I drank, I always put a lot of effort into hiding how often and how much I regularly consumed. I just couldnโt bear someone thinking I had a problem with alcohol.
I needed to control my own narrative in the minds of others. So to control that narrative, I had to lie or conceal how big a role alcohol played in my life. I pretended that I didnโt rely on it to have fun or to console me when I was nervous, scared, or agitated. I could take it or leave it is what I told co-workers and family members. Never mind the sleepy, red eyes or the faint yet unmistakable smell of the last remnants of alcohol continuing to detox itself out of my system and through my skin and breath. If you paid close attention you could tell I was lying, but the truth is, no one really cared. Certainly not as much as I thought they did.
Lying About Your Alcohol Consumption is Part of the Insanity
Very early in my sobriety I wondered why I cared so much about hiding my alcoholism. Like everything else, it wasnโt about how others viewed alcohol abuse disorder, but how I viewed it. My father is a dry drunk or dry alcoholic. That means he stopped drinking but never recovered. He still thinks like an alcoholic but doesnโt drink. My dad looked down upon people who couldnโt stop drinking, and secretly, I did too. He never had anything good to say about any of my aunts or uncles who abused alcohol. Of course, this hatred of alcoholics by other alcoholics is nothing new. The way our entire culture thinks of alcohol is insane, actually.
The late, great comedian Mitch Hedberg once said โAlcoholism is a disease. However, itโs the only disease you can get yelled at for having. โDammit, Steve, youโre an alcoholic!โ โDammit, Tim, you got Lupus!โโ
Thereโs an insanity to alcoholism. I was certainly insane about alcohol and probably still am. Alcohol is a dangerous, highly addictive drug that makes people aggressive. Most cases of domestic violence and rape involve alcohol. A large number of highway fatalities are due to alcohol. In fact, itโs a leading cause of death in general, yet our culture loves it. We know that alcohol has the potential to ruin our lives. We know it shrinks our brains and makes us sick. But when someone turns out to be addicted to alcohol, theyโre a loser. We pity them and call them weak. Why canโt they moderate this poison like we do?
Alcohol is Killing Us But We Look the Other Way
I didnโt want to be looked at like one of those outsiders. I didnโt want to be thought of as some loser who canโt control his drinking. As I write this it seems so insane to even care about it, but as I have said, I was insane. I bought into this idea that to drink poison is completely normal and anyone who lets it be a problem is a problem themselves. Never mind that it has destroyed so many lives. Never mind that it has brought upon my own family endless tragedies. It eats away at all of your organs until they are rotten, swollen and useless, but who cares?
I think our society needs alcoholics. I think they need the read about the four teenagers who slammed their car head first into a pole. They need to hear about the drunk who beat his own child to death with his fists. They need to see the video of the unconscious girl being raped at a party. Bring on the decapitations โ the debauchery. Without drunks then how could they say โhey, at least Iโm not that badโ as they pound back their drink at last call.
Only the Truth Matters
Right now, I donโt need to worry about lying about my alcohol consumption. But I am a problem drinker. I am an alcoholic. I cannot handle my drinking so I just donโt drink. The problem is me. I can live with that because I know the truth and as soon as I admitted it to myself I stopped caring as much. I know we live in an insane world and there is nothing I can do about that. The control I thought I had over what people thought about me and my drinking was an illusion, and illusions are justifiable when you take part in the insanity of alcohol. My dad knows I am an alcoholic and he is fine with it. In fact, everyone in my life who matters knows this about me. The truth is what matters. Nothing else does. ย
Click Here for addiction and recovery resources
SAMHSA – Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration