Transcript:

Steve: Welcome to Through the Glass Recovery Podcast, we believe that connection is the opposite of addiction vulnerability is the antidote to shame and that recovery isn’t just rewarding. It’s also a lot of fun. We’re your hosts Steve and Julie. Listen as we get together with friends to shed light on the hard things. Talk about the other side of addiction and how we create a life so full there’s no space left for alcohol.

Julie: Have you ever hidden a bottle of alcohol from your partner and worried all day that they’d find it? Or told someone you’d quit drinking but just hit it from them instead? Have you ever told the hairdresser you love your new style when inside you’re cringing? Honesty seems easy until we get really honest with ourselves. In this episode we talk with Brian, Antje and Michal, with special guest Corina, about honesty and recovery. Most of us consider honesty to be an important value in our lives. But the more we dig into it, the more we realize the places where we tend to be more dishonest than we thought: lying to make others feel better lying by omission, lying to ourselves. Listen as we dig into honesty and talk about some of the areas we struggle and what we’ve learned.

Steve: I’ve never hid a bottle under the bed, but I have behind the wash machine, in my truck, in the garage. The list goes on. I’ve lied about a lot of things too. But I think if you hit subscribe or like you can follow us and you can hear more stories about all the lies and all the places that we hid our booze.

Julie: We are here tonight with Antje, Brian and Michal, thank you guys so much for being here, especially last minute. We really appreciate it. So, I’m gonna start with Antje. Do you want to just do a quick introduction for me?

Antje: Yes. Hi Julie. Hi Steve. Thank you for having me.

Steve: Thanks for being back.

Antje: Yeah, you’re welcome. I’m Antje and I’m, how old am I… 45 years old and I have two kids, they’re 15 and 12 and I am about 11 months and three weeks sober. So I got just a little bit left until I hit the next milestone, which is a year. So I’m super excited.

Julie: So cool. Really excited for you. Brian. How are you tonight?

Brian: Hi Julie. I’m good and I’m also happy to be back. Thanks for having me back Julie and Steve. My name is Brian. I am 46. I live in Wayne, New Jersey, northern New Jersey. I have two daughters a little bit younger. They’re actually my oldest daughter is going to be nine on Friday and my younger daughter is seven. I’m at 158 days sober. So just over five months.

Julie: Congratulations!

Brian: Thank you

Julie: And Michal?

Michal: Hi guys, thanks for having me again. Michal, I am in Albuquerque New Mexico, I am 42 years old and I have zero kids. I have six fur kids, to be seven tomorrow. So a lot of lot of fur and dust and dog glitter as we call it. And I am 59 days today since my last slip.

Julie: So very cool. We expect puppy pictures just so you know

Michal: of course!

Julie: Yeah, so super excited about this conversation tonight. You guys are like part of the Through the Glass all star cast. You guys have all been here enough to know how this goes. So when I first started doing work on myself in recovery, I worked my way through Rewired by Erica Spiegelman. The second chapter in that book is honesty. And I thought I’m really a fairly honest person. This one should be easy. And then I realized how wrong I was. I had a lot of work to do. It turns out most of us are actually pretty dishonest either with ourselves or others. Either with outright lies or quietly lying by a mission. It’s been a journey to get brutally honest with myself and others and it seems to be the same for most of the people in recovery that I talked with.

So let’s get honest, when do you find your most likely to be dishonest? How have you gotten more honest and how has it changed your life for the better?

Brian: So Julie, when you texted me the topic yesterday, you had, I don’t think I answered you but you said you couldn’t remember if I read the book. I actually haven’t, it’s on my list. I have not read this book yet. But my initial like, you know off the cuff thought was exactly what you wrote, which and then you just said it here, which is, oh, okay, this is one thing. I can talk about this. It’s always been a big part of who I am. And then I read the rest of what you wrote and I was like, oh maybe this isn’t gonna be so easy.

So yeah, I um honesty, integrity, reliability have had always been sort of my hallmark core values if you will. Just no matter what was going right or wrong in my life, I could always, I mean, nobody’s perfect, but I could always look in the mirror and say the that I lived true to these three values. Last year, I lost all three of those, I lost my way. I had an affair, I told my wife I was going to end the affair and I didn’t, I told the other woman I was going to be with her and I didn’t. All of this got exponentially worse when I started drinking again, which I did right when all this stuff started coming to light.

Well really once when, right when it started happening, and then I started lying about that too, I told my wife, I stopped drinking and then I didn’t. She said, I don’t want you to drink around the kids anymore. I said, I mean I can’t argue with you, you’re right. And I said, I would not do that.

And I started doing it.

But I was being deceitful. Sneaking it going out to the hardware store. Well, I’d go to the hardware store, but I’d stop along the way or wherever, you know, hardware store. I stopped at the liquor store and make trips. Make up reasons to go on trips so I could stop and then I’d hide it around the house. I bought flasks and was putting it into flasks so it would be easier to hide. I was pouring it into soda cans.

She smelled whiskey in a coke can, caught me on it. So then I started drinking vodka because it’s literally… so doing all this deceptive stuff. So, so again, a guy that used to say honesty, integrity, and reliability. I mean, all three of those things completely out the window last year. So this would be a good topic for me, right?

When I started getting really serious about my sobriety again, which I can say didn’t really happen until September of this year. All that stuff that I said happened from June of last year to January two of this year. And then I had an incident where I was wound up in the hospital. Uh I’m going on a bit of a tangent here, but I wound up trying to kill myself. So I was in the hospital and inpatient and I came out and went to intensive outpatient therapy for mental health and and substance abuse for three months. And I’m telling you that part just to say that.

So, for for that time from january 3rd until well through that that treatment plan, I was sober and trying to get trying to get better about honesty. And I did have a slip again from late June into mid july where I drank and lied about it again until I got caught. So, it wasn’t really until the beginning of September that I started getting serious about my sobriety again. And one of the first things that I said to myself, I said, all right, I’m gonna get back to being true to my core values.I’m going to get back to being honest again.

You know, it’s it’s in theory is simple, right? In theory, it’s simple. It’s hard.

You don’t lie.You know? No big lies. No Little white lies. Don’t be deceptive. Be transparent. Don’t conceal important details. But in practice, Steve Yeah, it’s hard. And that’s just the stuff like on the on the on the surface level, then the more now when I started thinking more about Julie’s, you know about this topic tonight. What about being honest? That’s not so straightforward, like being brutally honest with myself. What about being straightforward when… and Steve, you and I have talked about this before – what about being transparent with somebody when maybe I have a guilty conscience because it’s something that I did. And I want to tell you about it, mainly just to get it off my chest. I don’t feel guilty about it anymore, but it’s not really gonna help the situation. It’s not going to do anything but cause more hurt to you, you know? So is that part of honesty and if so you know, how good am I at that?

So the more… and I can keep going, but I’m going to give somebody else a turn and take a breath here. I think the more I thought about this though, not only did I lose my way the last year with it, I think, you know, being honest with myself and I don’t know that I was ever as good as it as good at being honest as I thought I was. I guess to to kind of come back to the point there that you were making Steve yeah.

Steve: To be honest about it, I wasn’t that honest.

Michal: You make great points Brian. And I think the big glaring one there is, you know, the the hiding of the drinking and things like that, which I did similarly. I hid it from people in my life, I hit it from family who knew I’d struggled with alcohol in the past. I hid it from my partner who lives with me, you know. I did very similar things, I was you know hiding it in the bathroom, I was trying to pretend I wasn’t drunk when I was and then getting caught and you know, the vicious cycle that would come from that. That led to a lot of binging and then sobriety for a few days and then binging again.

You know, it was it was this vicious cycle that ultimately was rooted in dishonesty. I didn’t really make that connection until we started talking about this and thinking about this topic of honesty and sobriety, that even in, you know, in hiding my drinking, I was being dishonest in so many directions around my world without even thinking about it.

Because similar to Brian, I feel like for the most part, I try to live my life as a person with honesty and integrity and as someone who’s trustworthy and as someone who’s reliable. When I’m drinking all of those things go out the window. I just cannot promise that I will be that person and I don’t like that about me. That is that is not someone I want to be. You know, it does not align with my core values. I think that’s a great way to put it.

Steve: I think the dishonesty and the little white lies and all of that stuff starts before you even pick up. And then it adds up and then it adds up and then it adds up and then you don’t feel like you can do anything about it anymore. And then so you turn to the easy way out instead of turning to the honest way out. Which is why honesty is so freaking hard. I think it’s the little white lies and the dishonesty to ourselves. No this will be fine. I’m not gonna deal with it because it’s hard. I mean there’s a complete white lie just to myself now this this will be fine. It hurts. You can feel it, you can feel that it’s not right.

I’m just gonna let go. Not really let it go. I’m just not going to deal with it. I’m going to tell myself that you know either being treated this way was okay even though I know it’s not or vice versa. I mean I lied to agreeing to avoid conflict so somebody is taking their opinion or whatever that may be and I’m just gonna say yes like it’s my own, even though it’s not something that I agree with at all. I’m just gonna either I’m gonna make myself a part of the conversation because I want to feel like I wanna be a part of that conversation. I want to feel like I’m involved and then I’m just gonna choose to not take the authentic side of it and just to feel included. When really I could have just stayed there and maybe have been silent or you know I agreed to something that I didn’t that that doesn’t even align with myself and now I’m aligned with it by either agreeing to something or just remaining silent and then having my name attached to it.

There’s a whole lot of that.

Julie: I think vulnerability and honesty go hand in hand. Vulnerability is something I was always so, so bad at whether it was just talking about how I was feeling or asking for help. I mean I’m fine. That’s been like my mantra forever. Everything can obviously not be fine. And somebody will say, how are you or what’s wrong? And I’m like, I’m fine. And that is like the first step to going back to drinking, if you’re not careful with it. When somebody asks what’s wrong you talk about it. Because just saying I’m fine isn’t gonna let you deal with anything.

It’s just so hard. I mean it just depends on what it is.

But for me, I think vulnerability or not being vulnerable was probably the way that I was the most dishonest

Brian: I want to ask about that. What do you think about… I think being totally vulnerable and totally transparent is absolutely part of the deal here. If we’re trying to go all in on honesty, but but with whom? Like, you know, I thought a lot about that as I was kind of trying to put together my thoughts because I don’t think I need to tell. I mean obviously some stranger on the street, every everything that’s going on. Nobody I’m fine. But like, so I don’t know what, you know, I’m going with this.

Julie: I do. So it’s what I call misplaced vulnerability. There are some people in our lives that deserve our truth and all of our truth or most of our truth. There are some people that just don’t. And I think we have to kind of carefully identify those people and build that trust with them in order to be vulnerable in a way that is safe and productive. Throwing every little bit of everything out there to anyone you meet I don’t think is wise.

Antje: I think along with that goes the desire to be perfect or having that tendency to have this perfectionism where like I lie by omission a lot, like where I feel like this makes me look not as good. And so then I don’t say that, especially when I care about the other person should like me. Then then I leave things out and I’m not honest because I censor myself and say, well, that’s not okay to be that way, right? And so then I don’t say that that’s what I think my biggest goals are to change, to be more honest that way. To not admit things just because they’re flawed. But did I see flawed then where I wish I was different and just want to hide it.

Like the hiding with capital letters is a big step for me to get the small stuff. And I just I just, you know, shove it under the rug and don’t don’t be fully open.

Steve: Lying is all fairly shame based, isn’t it? Like, I’m not going to tell the truth because I’m ashamed of what the truth is, whether that may be for me, I maybe it’s, I don’t think my thoughts are as valuable or I think it’s silly and I’ll even come out and say like “stupid thought here.”

Like I’m already knocking myself down a peg to make it okay to make fun of me if that happens, because I’ve already set myself up for it. When really in the end I’m just afraid to be made fun of like, I’m ashamed of that thought or there’s the fear of it being rejected or you know what I mean? So instead I’m going to lie to make it sound good so I don’t have to deal with the truth.

Michal: Yeah, shame based and fear based are probably the driving factors of the majority of dishonesty. Yeah. Either being ashamed of what someone might think or being afraid of some sort of repercussions based on, on what that thing may be. Whether it’s hurting someone’s feelings and so you tell a white lie or whether it’s, you know, the big stuff that we deal with that we lie to cover to, you know, hide addiction or hide, you know. there’s just a gauntlet of possible lies, but I do, I think you’re absolutely right. I think there’s likely very narrow field of what causes most people to to resort to those things.

Brian: I like the I like that you added fear because steve you said that shame based. I’m like thinking about it, like, Yeah, I think that’s right. The only other thing I could think of was avoidance, which might be because you’re you might want to avoid because of shame, but you also want to avoid because you just don’t want to deal with whatever, you know, you don’t want to get into it with some I think that fear covers that. Yeah, I think that sounds right to me too.

Antje: There’s another layer for me where I talk to myself and lie to myself, or I try to figure out am I lying to myself or not. Where I’m really lost in what’s my own truth? Where where am I really like? That’s the thing where I really hope to grow to define what’s my truth and then identify more where I’m really lying to myself versus I am being honest and this is who I am. Which then I hope I hope to have a stronger basis to just say this is me and this is take it or leave it kind of thing. Because I think that’s what’s still, it’s like, I’m trying to build right now breaks on no solid ground because I don’t know my own truth yet. Because often I just don’t know. I’ve been manipulated so much in my life that I only hear other people’s voices telling me, I’m bad about this, or I’m no good that way or this is the way you should be or this is how I only love you.

And so it’s not where I can say this is my truth. And now I’m lying to myself for now I’m at least honest to myself. I’m I’m lost there yet. And that’s where when I have this, I feel like I can move forward and be more honest with everybody else. Don’t feel like I need to hide constantly.

Steve: That story you tell yourself.

Julie: Going back to rewired the first chapter is authenticity and the second chapter is honesty. And to me, what I ended up realizing when I started working through that book was authenticity is finding our own truth And honesty is sharing that truth with other people. And those are like the the two foundational cores of that particular program but of recovery in general. It doesn’t matter whether you use a program or you’re just doing the work on your own, whatever it is.

It’s being honest with yourself first and then it’s being honest with the people around you. I mean that even fits into like the premise of the 12 steps or whatever it is. And it’s really hard, especially I know you and I have I think different backgrounds Antje, but we share some similar struggles with perfectionism and self worth and things like that. And I do the same thing. Authenticity is really hard for me sometimes because I just don’t know. It’s not even that I’m trying to not be authentic. It’s not like I’m intentionally being inauthentic. I just don’t even know what the authenticity is. So it’s a journey in itself I think.

But you’re absolutely right that it’s really hard to present ourselves honestly to other people if we’re not even really sure how to present ourselves honestly to ourselves.

Antje: It’s good that you point that out because I’ve done the rewiring workshops and I’ve been in the authenticity zoom and I’ve been in the honesty zoom but I didn’t link that it was building on to each other. I thought they were just somehow related. So that kind of helps when you pointed that out. But it just lately clicked that I was really trying to be honest with myself and the only thing I saw was confusion about what I was really trying to answer because I couldn’t define my own truth.

Steve: You know I think the part we sometimes get stuck in is is we try to make sure that there’s a solid definition and then because there is no solid definition we don’t try. So then you don’t ever ever get to find out if it’s authentic or not because you failed to choose something to try and then if you don’t ever do that you never find out whether it’s honestly authentic.

Antje: Yeah because I think I can then go with my own truth and what I know about myself much better forward and face either rejection and be okay with that or enjoy approval and take it in as something to strengthen myself or to to to help myself stay more grounded. Or you know, but that’s where I’m feeling like I’m building into no ground right now

Steve: And that’s what makes you feel like it’s hard to do because it’s that fear of the rejection part where if you give it a try and then feel rejected, then it’s hard to try again and it’s hard to try again and it’s hard to try again. Until if you give it a try and it feels right and it’s rejected, but it still felt right then if you look at it and examine it and it’s like hold on, wait a second. It was right, It was true to me. Then maybe it’s the wrong person, right, right. Maybe it’s the wrong situation, Maybe you’re just authentic to yourself and how that feels. Maybe it’s misplaced completely. Not everyone is going to receive the same thing the same way and so actually trying it and then trying it again and then trying it again, evaluating is it right? Is it with the right person? Maybe it’s not try again with somebody else?

I mean if it fails enough times you’re gonna know, but also generally speaking if you’re trying, it is probably pretty close to your truth

Michal: and the thing I love about that is I think given our history of addiction it’s not natural to us to try something and try it again and try it again, especially if we don’t get the outcome that we were expecting. Because we’re not used to pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zones, were used to ignoring our comfort zones and numbing when something gets uncomfortable. And so it doesn’t feel natural.

It’s it’s all it’s all just learning how to like be human, right? It’s learning how to process uncomfortable emotions and how to recognize these things in ourselves. Because for me, at least I can’t really speak for anyone else. But for me, I ignored my authentic self for the majority of my formulative years, my teens, my twenties. I was not paying any attention to an internal voice whatsoever. I was constantly drunk and I did not learn how to have healthy relationships, how to have boundaries, how to you know how to recognize my truths. I didn’t know that I had truths that I wasn’t even living, you know? This this level of consciousness of being did not exist. Yeah, I was just going through the motions and just kind of living living in the moment.

So it’s it’s definitely it’s it’s uncomfortable and I think it’s hard to be uncomfortable

Julie: Once you start though, just with honesty in general, with authenticity, whatever, it gets easier once you start figuring bits out and once you start working up the courage to do that. Even just with like going back to the shame and God, I remember when I when I was hiding drinking because I think we’ve all got hiding drinking stories, but I remember like that feeling in the pit of my stomach when I was afraid I was going to get caught.

I remember when I had a bottle of something hidden under the bed and I hadn’t hidden it very well, I had just shoved it under there and then my husband got home before I did and that feeling in my stomach when I was afraid he was going to find it. Because there is no way to explain away a bottle of whiskey under the bed, There’s not! And you know like that that feeling that you just the more you hide, the more you carry that around with you until you’re just like uncomfortable in your own skin. Letting, just getting it all out there, being honest, quitting drinking obviously, but then being really honest and telling him how bad it was and how much I had hidden and just letting it all go, not having anything to hide anymore is the best feeling. Like I still remember the way that that felt and it’s been a long time since I felt like I had something to hide like that and it’s so, so nice to be free of it and I think that goes with not just with our drinking, but anything that we’re being dishonest about anything we’re hiding. I think that the freedom that comes with the honesty makes it so worth it.

And I think experiencing that freedom and like that, that lifting of that weight makes you more likely to be honest again next time with whatever it is that you need to be honest about

Michal: the positive feedback circle. It’s positive reinforcement when we find that we can enjoy that behavior. Yeah, we’re that much more likely to try again.

Brian: I think every night I think every time I do this show with you guys, I’ve learned something new about myself or figure out something that I can kind of take back and and apply in my own life.

And I was talking earlier, I guess it was probably last week with some sober friends about what, why did we drink? And I’ve always, for the longest time had used escapism. That’s my I mean, I think that’s true. I think I was trying to escape, but that’s, that doesn’t mean that’s pretty broad. And so for the first time that I can remember, someone asked, what were you trying to escape from?

And I still haven’t answered that question to the group, but I realized I don’t think I was being honest with myself and I’m not sure that I will answer it fully with the group. I think that’s not kind of, this is the situation of what, you know, I forget how you said it originally, but you know, determine deciding what you share with whom kind of deal. But I don’t think I was even answering that honestly to myself until I stopped and thought about it. So being brutally honest with myself, I think is the starting point. What the lesson learned for me on this based on this podcast, this conversation we’re having is starting at, you know, ground zero with myself being brutally honest. I mean, there’s no reason to have any holds barred when you’re, you know, talking to yourself only right?

No reason not to be honest. Even if it’s uncomfortable.

Steve: There’s some words that you write down damn, you’re about to write it down. I don’t want to make this the truth. No, no, no, no. There are so many words that burn when they come out of your mouth. Because Andy Grammer said it the best, wow and he is so right because there’s some things that I’ve said that I am cringing. No, no, no. And then when you finally squeeze it out of the toothpaste tube its

Julie: that’s when journaling really changed for me when I started writing down the things that were really hard to even write, let alone say out loud. When I started writing down the stuff that I had to force down on the paper. That’s when journaling changed for me. That’s when it became probably the most important tool of my sobriety. Because as soon as you start writing those things down, you make them something you have to accept and then start to address. For me some of that really brutal honesty and all of the shame and all of the really hard things. That was the first place that I wrote them down and got them out of my head and out of my heart. And it it also made it a little bit easier than to talk about them with other people because that’s something I think most of us need to do is talk about stuff like that. But that was the first step for me. The things that I can’t say out loud, I’ve at least learned how to get them out on paper and that’s, it’s been really, really important.

Brian: No holds barred journaling. There’s my New Year’s resolution right there. Yeah, I mean I’m serious too. I love that idea.

Michal: I was literally just talking to someone today about things that I’ve done to kind of – and this is not someone in the community, this is a work friend- but she knows that I’ve been through some struggles in my relationship and in my own personal life and you know, anxiety issues and depression issues and these sort of things.

And she was asking me if I journal and I found myself kind of giving excuses for not doing it. But I think the reality is I’m not, I’m not, I want to use, I just, I don’t think I’m utilizing the tool thoroughly. I don’t think I’m being brutally honest with it and I think that’s easy to make it feel like it’s less important than it is when you’re not using it with full authenticity. To bring it full circle to the honesty and authenticity conversation, I don’t think that I’m putting things down on paper that are hard for me to say. I think it’s very superficial.

It’s it’s kind of how was your day today and you know, the kind of things that I tell somebody who wasn’t in this community. You know, it’s not the brutal level of honesty that I’ve come to kind of, you know, trust my my fellow sober warriors with and, and, and I’m really not, yeah, I don’t think I’m being fully authentic even with my own journal. So that, that sounds reasonable goal to me as well.

Antje: I think it comes and goes for me. I have some stuff that I can really put down on paper and feel better or just kind of let it all go, and then other things where I’m more hesitant to even just put it down. So I think it’s just kind of depending for me on what it really is. There’s some more comfortable areas and others more uncomfortable areas where I still were then, you know, that’s even insightful, right that you start journaling and you find yourself struggling to put it down. But you know, there’s some work to do and often it comes back to not knowing where I really stand or what I should really write or who really is now speaking. Like where I really start to recognize, you know like what is what is going on?

Is this like judgment? I like the voices I hear from other people judging me or is this actually somewhere where I know that I have all right to think and feel the way I feel. So that it’s just kind of like patchwork for me. Some areas are easier than others to you know where I stand.

Brian: But do you have like a strategy though too? Because I was going to ask you about that, you mentioned earlier to like what what is your approach to getting better about being honest with yourself? Journaling is one suggestion

Antje: Yeah, that’s a good question. I’m that’s like so fresh for me. It’s maybe 10 days old. So I’m trying to figure out how to because it came up where I’m like what, who am I like? It’s like I hear all these voices and I’m struggling with figuring out and what’s what what is your truth with this? And so yeah, I think I’m going to have to try on something and see what is it really? I don’t know. I’m still looking for assurance from outside like oh what does my husband say or what is my doctor saying or what you know. And it’s like well that feels good but what am I thinking? You know? So yeah I’m still trying to figure this out.

Steve: The hard part will be just writing it down, you’re asking everyone else the questions what am I thinking? Write it

Antje: well and that’s where I would be hard where I would struggle

Julie: but you have to start practice I bet I think awareness awareness of the fact that it’s an issue for any of us with anything we’re dealing with awareness of the problem is always the first step to the solution. It’s always the first step to whatever that path is to solve the problem and you’re very aware. You’re very self aware. It’s incredible. And the fact that you know what you need to work on is that the most important thing from there. You experiment and you figure out what feels like it’s working and what doesn’t

Steve: Like you said because it’s hard, you know that one’s gonna take some practice

Brian: and if it wasn’t abundantly clear I have no strategy, I was just going to copy off you if you had you know

Antje: we can we can try and then compare notes brian

Steve: in recovery if you don’t know where to start, start where somebody else started. Yeah there’s no yeah there’s no shame in trying what somebody else tried because it worked for them because you never know if it’s gonna work for you.

Antje: Yeah and that’s actually where you know based even on my job like I am good at like just collecting data and evaluating how it all turned out.

So I’m very like I like to experiment with things and just see how it goes for me. So Brian just do the same. You know just take something that pops in your head as that could be a way to do it and that’s what I do. I just try it out and collect data on how that’s going and then reject it or you know refine it based on the data that I collected.

Julie: who is trying to enter the room?

Steve: I have no idea.

Brian: Mm Somebody who’s being dishonest because they weren’t even invited.

Julie: So yeah. Do we let them in? I wouldn’t know who it is. Hello?

Antje: Looks like Stephanie.

Julie: No it’s Corina. Corina is probably trying to go, are you trying to go to a meeting?

Corina: No, isn’t it tonight? No… didn’t you tell me Tuesday at seven

Steve: january.

Corina: Ah a month to early.

Julie: Totally just like recording a podcast right now though. Like who is this trying to get in?

Corina: Okay bye. Sorry.

Steve: No, no. What are your thoughts on honesty? Yeah, Corina just so happened to join us right now. She’s supposed to be on another podcast. Corina? We’re talking about honesty, let’s be honest about this.

Corina: I think honesty is the best policy.

Julie: Are you good at it?

Corina: No, I am. I am. I suffer from the disease to please. And so I will put up with, like, I don’t know if you guys talked about that before, but I will put up with a lot of discomfort and not reveal my true feelings. I’m not honest about my true feelings because I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. So it’s not great. You know, like, I find myself I get into the pickles because I won’t I won’t say, hey, I don’t like this, or this bothers me. Now with my family. They if they heard me, they’d be like, you’re so honest. Because I will with my family, I’m absolutely upfront, but if I don’t know you or or my friends, I cannot. No, I’m not, I’m not honest.

Which is something I’m working on, actually. I’m working with my therapist on trying to be more honest

Michal: the white lies and kind of, yeah, that can be really easy to slip into, you know, and and how important, like, brutal honesty is with ourselves with others when it comes to the sobriety journey,

Corina: My hair is a great, you know, like the hairdresser did my hair and I didn’t, I didn’t like it.

Antje: And I know that!

Corina: not only did I say I loved it, I tipped her and followed up with an email that said, oh, thank you so much, I love my hair!

Antje: Oh, at least I don’t follow up with an email.

Corina: Everything else I just have to keep this, I have to keep up this ruse

Steve: That’s lying to avoid conflict!

Corina: I would almost rather stab myself in the forehead with a fork than to disappoint or hurt someone’s feelings.

Julie: So true. Yeah, I mean, I will, I will get pretty dang dishonest if it means not disappointing someone. Absolutely, and that is terrible because then how do you feel? Like you’ve got a haircut you don’t love and like, it doesn’t serve us to be dishonest. We just need to learn how to communicate our feelings clearly and compassionately.

Corina: I hope to be, you know,

Michal: it comes back to that fear, peace and fearing how that person is going to react because if we didn’t have that ingrained fear, it wouldn’t be an issue. But we we have a reason that we’ve developed that response to giving negative feedback to someone, right? It’s it’s been ingrained, it’s been trained somehow in us that that’s not appropriate, that’s not safe to tell someone that and to potentially hurt their feelings. Whereas the reality of the situation is your hairdresser would probably appreciate knowing versus continuing to provide something that isn’t something you like, right? That’s probably not something that they would feel good about.

Steve: I guess one of the questions you’d have to ask yourself is would you want to know?

Antje: Yeah. For me, it comes back to that. I can’t figure out in a moment if I really like it or not. So I go home and think, well maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and like it, who knows? Right? It’ll probably grow on me. So that’s why I’m struggling with this whole thing to just stay right there. I hate it. Can you do something different before I pay for this? Because I’m telling myself just wait for it tomorrow, you might really like it

Brian: and steve, you said, would you want to know? So I’m like, well, yeah, I would want to know now.

I’m wondering if I’m being honest with myself, going back to that part of the conversation, what I really want to know.

Steve: So that the, the answer to that question is once again, really hard because then you’re forced to face the reality of it, whether that’s the rejection or whatever piece that might be. Typically the reason why you don’t want to know is because it’s, it’s gonna hurt. But the other way you can look at that is this, that’s how I improve. If I don’t face it, I could never do anything about that.

Julie: That would you want to know question originally came up for Steve and I last Christmas when I was thinking about telling my parents that I had quit drinking and that I have an alcohol problem… my dog is making a lot of noise … Anyway, last Christmas when I was thinking about telling my parents that I have an alcohol problem and what it came down to was wondering if I was my parents, what I want to know?

And that made it such an easy answer. And it’s a really good question to ask yourself whenever you’re thinking about being honest with someone, if I was that person would I want to know whatever it is. And almost always the answer is Yeah, of course I would want to know

Brian: Well, but you know, so going back to not to, you know, to what I said earlier and I, I can think of a few times with my wife over the past year where I told her things that maybe if I had asked myself that question, put myself in her shoes. The answer is, there’s no value in me… it’s only going to hurt, it’s not gonna help things are I don’t want to be specific of course, but you know, I think it’s a great question to ask because sometimes maybe the answer is no. And you know, for me, I’m just doing it to clear my own guilty conscience. That’s not a good reason for doing, you know, sharing something?

Julie: Yeah.

Antje: Or I actually think family members where I could say, yeah, they would want to know but me because they judge me. Do I really need that, you know, what is the reason you think? Right? So that comes up for me. They just talk behind my back about it and I just can’t really get any gain out of it. Other than that they have something to talk about gossip is somebody else’s problem.

Michal: Julie, what was what was the phrase on vulnerability? Selective vulnerability? What did you say? Oh, misplaced vulnerability, misplaced.That’s what I thought of.

Antje: They don’t deserve that truth. And therefore, because even though they’d like to know it wouldn’t be any gain for me to share that because they don’t deserve that.

Brian: But the hairdresser,

Steve: Okay Antje, Brian, Michael and our special guest, Corina, we talked about lying to avoid conflict and disappointment. Lie to hide shame and avoid facing fear. Being brutally honest with ourselves. Julie, you mentioned that authenticity is being honest with yourself. And honesty is sharing your authenticity. I think that was really beautifully put. And that really makes a really good point of all of that. Honesty is freedom. And that honesty is really hard. Whether it’s with ourselves or with everybody else.

I’m gonna quote Andy Grammer here, I gotta say the words that burn when they leave your mouth whether it’s to someone else or in your journal. But one of the most important things, just don’t leave the good parts out. It might be hard. But if we leave the good parts out, there’s work that can be done in the joy too.

Thank you. Antje, thank you Brian and thank you, Michal. And Karina, Thanks for hopping in right near the end.

Julie: It was beautiful to have you here.

Steve: It was awesome. So thank you guys for being on tonight.

Brian: The best guest was the crasher.

I don’t, I feel kind of, I don’t know you guys are gonna be like when are you guys recording a podcast so I can just hop on!

Julie: We’d also like to thank our listeners for sharing this space with us.

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We’ll see you next time as we continue to explore life on the other side of alcohol.