“Honesty is reached through the doorway of grief and loss. Where we cannot go in our mind, our memory, or our body is where we cannot be straight with another, with the world, or with our self. The fear of loss, in one form or another, is the motivator behind all conscious and unconscious dishonesties: all of us are afraid of loss, in all its forms; all of us, at times, are haunted or overwhelmed by the possibility of this.”
(Whyte, D. 2015. Consolations. Many Rivers Press, Langley, Washington).
I attended an AA meeting last Sunday morning where the subject of the meeting was honesty. Interesting questions were posed such as:
- “What is honesty?”
- “Did you have a time in your life when honesty was completely disregarded?”
- “As your disease progressed, did it become more and more difficult to tell the truth?”
- “Did you even remember what the truth was?”
- “Did you cheat and steal to get drugs, alcohol, or food for your disease?”
- “Did people in your family lie?”
Lack of honesty certainly goes hand-in-hand with addiction to drugs or alcohol. Substance abusers lie to protect their drinking or drug behaviors, which become more important to them than their relationships with family and friends. The very same lack of honesty is present for most people with eating disorders. Many people lie about their eating habits. “I ate!” “I ate what was on my meal plan.” “I only ate a salad today. Why am I not losing weight?” They may lie when they talk about purging! Or binging. When someone begins to lie in one area of their life, it tends to spreads to many other areas.
When your life has been sustained by lies, it’s hard to open up and let other people see who you really are. But it’s only through living honestly than you can strengthen relationships, conquer problems, build self-esteem and create a richer and more meaningful life.
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