Confessions of a Recovering Liar

When I decided to come out as an alcoholic to my friends and family, I didn’t give it a hell of a lot of thought. I just did it. I’d already thrown myself headlong into sobriety the same way I used to throw myself at Jäger shots before driving to another bar across town. Telling everyone just made sense. Then again, I never think things all the way through. I don’t consider consequences, tomorrows or realities. I still don’t have the discipline to read instruction materials or the patience to wait for something other than the first thing to come around. By contrast, my father is a good, methodical, patient man—the sort of person who calculates, measures and makes careful cuts. I wish I was like that. He put things together while I take just about everything apart. I have the sort of recklessness and self-loathing that helps you wind up as an English major.

Revealing my alcoholism wasn’t the hard part. Discovering it surprised nobody was.

It hurt, but I totally understood. When I began sharing that I was an alcoholic to friends, family, co-workers and anyone on Facebook who’d listen, there was a silent echo of everyone saying “Well, no shit” all at once. My honesty simply poured concrete into the cracks of broken relationships and made all my lies emerge like spots under a blacklight. The few people who actually didn’t know I had a problem could now resolve any lingering mysteries of my last-second cancellations, vanishing acts and bonkers 3:21 am Facebook status updates. Beyond that, it didn’t change much.

Now that I’m “out and proud” about my alcoholic past, I often wonder if anyone will ever trust me again. It genuinely keeps me awake. I completely get it. Just because I’m a recovering liar doesn’t automatically mean I’m trustworthy now. It’s as if someone rebooted the TV show of my life but never bothered to re-cast the main character. I’m still here. Everyone else has moved on. All of my drinking buddies have vanished; all of the people I’ve hurt are off living full lives. Maybe I’m nothing more than a cautionary tale that people can point toward—the alcoholic they knew Back In The Day.

The funny thing is that, now, I trust recovering alcoholics more than almost anyone else on the planet. I’ve learned exceedingly artful liars become the most ardent truth-tellers. When I was drinking, I felt like my life was about making dozens of lies true at any given point in time—which is as exhausting as it sounds. I couldn’t possibly keep track of all the lies I’ve told and, worse yet, believed. I now take all of the energy I used to spend crafting excuses and actually follow through. I’m learning the simple power of doing what you say you’re going to. If we’re only as sick as our secrets, I inherently trust people who actually know something about being poisoned from the inside. Alcoholics like me lived so long in the shadow of dishonesty that we’ve learned, the hard way, how to respect the truth.

Long before admitting to being an alcoholic, I had a moment of reckoning. My life was one big stress fracture thanks to drinking. If you held my life up to the light just right, you could make out all the hairline cracks spidering in a thousand directions. For me, business trips were a cue to drink and generally misbehave. Airport bars where no one blinked at me ordering at beer at 6 am were fantasy lands. So long as I got my work done—said my hellos, recited my talking points and landed my handshakes—I had a license to drink. Around 4 am in a Hilton Garden Inn somewhere in Texas, I woke up on the tiled floor of my bathroom. I’d thrown up in the bathtub and there was a thin trail of blood leading in from the hallway. I’d apparently collapsed into the mirrored closet door upon returning to my room. There were shards of glass everywhere on the carpet. I’d cut my hand, semi-seriously, and crawled into the bathroom where I passed out.

This was Night #1 of my business trip. I still had two to go. I spent the next few days trying to figure out how to explain this. Creative Writing 301 didn’t come to my rescue. This was the first time my drinking had spilled into the real world and I couldn’t dream up a way out. When I returned to work, I did seven or eight loops around the office before finding the courage to visit my admin. This was no accident. There was no explanation, there was no logical way for me to shrug off a room damage fee like this. It was time to come clean.

So, naturally, I lied.

I said I’d lost my balance. I acted embarrassed. Sometimes I get vertigo, I told the admin. It throws off the ear drums—it comes out of nowhere. She knew I was lying. I could see it flash in her eyes, but she nodded anyway. She felt sorry for me. We went through the motions and she filed a report to make it go away. This was my life: one empty charade after another, with me always depending upon someone to look the other way. Big or small, lies were just a matter of course to get me through the day.

Sadly, people never saw what I wanted them to see exactly when I wanted them to see it. That’s not how life worked. In my experience, people always saw exactly what I didn’t want them to see. Now, I’m unafraid. If I tripped into a hotel closet, I wouldn’t wait several days to bring it to my employers’ attention. Then again, it’s amazing how many closet doors have gone unshattered now that I’ve stopped drinking. Trust is something I cherish, sure, but it’s also something I never assume I have. After all, I’m still learning to trust myself because I’m the person I’ve lied to the most.