One of the most difficult choices to make in recovery is to be completely honest. However, being truly honest with everyone in our lives, most especially ourselves, can be one of the most rewarding and empowering choices we make.
Being Honest with a Higher Power
One of the most tangible benefits of turning ourselves over to a power greater than ourselves is that divine power is not a tangible being that we have to confront face to face. That can make it easier for us to pour out our souls and be totally honest with God or whatever power we have found.
To believe in God or another spiritual power is to believe in the concepts of forgiveness and a complete lack of judgment. Prior to surrendering our lives to divinity, it is very unlikely that we have felt what being on the receiving end of true and unconditional love is like. That can give us so much power, and being honest in our spiritual journey can bring so much healing as well.
Being Honest with Others
Facing our loved ones, especially those we may have hurt before we started our recovery journey, can be incredibly difficult. We are already struggling with bridging the gap between forgiveness and self-acceptance and our past behaviors. Now we have to be honest with others, who may judge us, become very angry with us, or worse, not be willing to forgive us for our past. Whoever said, “Honesty is the best policy” probably never battled addiction.
However, being honest with others truly is the best policy for our recovery. To truly allow healing, we need to own up to the mistakes we have made and allow for natural consequences. No matter how the other people react, even if they no longer want to be in our lives, our conscience is clean and the healing can begin. And laying ourselves bare before another human being allows us to find, without any question, the people in our lives who truly love us and will support our recovery.
Being Honest in Our Recovery
Recovery only happens with complete surrender, and surrender means we don’t get to choose which parts of our lives we are honest about anymore. Complete surrender means complete honesty. No matter how hard it is for us to speak about, no matter how much we want to gloss over things we did that were embarrassing or harmful to others, our recovery will only be as complete as our honesty.
Being honest with our sponsors is important on so many levels. One of the most important reasons is that it builds trust in our relationships. Being honest can feel like we are jumping off of a bridge, however, in actuality, it helps to form that bridge between two people. Our sponsors are not going to judge us. Our sponsors have been right where we are now. Our sponsor wants us to be successful, possibly even more than we want ourselves to be successful.
Being Honest with Ourselves
Looking into the face of a loved one and being completely honest can paralyze a person into inactivity. But looking into the mirror and being completely honest with ourselves is one of the most difficult things anyone can do in this life. We are the one person that we can never escape from. Our truths are the truths that only we have lived. Despite the fact that we already know those truths, deep down inside of us, where we stuffed them and hid them and numbed the pain with our addictions, looking in the mirror and truly being honest is one of the most powerful gifts we can give ourselves.
Around those things we did before we got sober, we may have added judgments, stigma, negative self-talk, self-loathing and more. When we truly unwrap our truths and face ourselves, we remove all of those other things. Now we can see who we really are as a person. We can look at what we have done, and we can make the choice to accept them for the scars that they are on our souls. We can learn from them, we can grow from them, and perhaps when we are strong enough again, we can use our truths to help others face their truths.
Looking in the mirror with complete honesty can be a massive stumbling block on our road to recovery. But removing our masks and looking at the person we really are, scars and all, we get to choose who we will be today. Then tomorrow. And every day of our recovery from now on. Only we will know when we have truly been honest with everyone in our lives. And only we will receive all of the powers of healing and growth that come from being totally honest. So talk to your higher power. Call that family member. Call your sponsor. Look in the mirror today, and call us at (805) 719-7954 to speak to one of our admissions experts. Tomorrow’s you will thank you.
