I wonder if all the lies I told during active addiction were because I wanted other people to believe it or if I wanted myself to believe it?
Always telling people how hard I was trying or all these “realizations” I had. Like I know now it was all bullshit, but I wonder if I did then.
I wonder if other people could see my bullshit as easily as I can see peoples now? I’m guessing yes.
I don’t wonder. I actually believed the lies I was telling myself and others. I was that deluded.
A lot of this can have to do with the audience you are lieing to. If they were in the same situation they probably wouldn’t disagree with you…I ran into this a lot.
I wouldn’t call them lies cos that for me implies the conscious intent to decieve. Like maybe when you steal, cheat on your partner or sneak your drugs. Or acitively deny you have a problem when you know you do.
I would call what you describe illusions, or delusions, and yes, I partly believed them too, partly had the nagging feeling it was bs and sth was wrong. They comfort us in that in between time when we can’t/don’t want to change yet.
Plus, like Chris is saying, other ppl also benefit from our illusions: they don’t need to look at themselves or do anything morally warranted to help us, if we tell them there’s nothing to worry about… It’s all pretty multi-dimentional, I would say.
I now recognize this self deception in others, particularly those who are coming up with justifications that X or Y will not help them get sober. I lived it for 18 years.
Dunno if it’s really the first. But it’s certainly a communal thought here today. 
Library Sciences is the real deal. Takes quite a bit of education and training.
A man walks into a library and asks the librarian to look up a book for him and then promptly walks away.
The man comes back to the library a year later and is completely shocked that he never found the book. He asks the librarian to look up the same book. Again the man promptly walks away.
A year passes yet again and this time the man comes back to the library and is mad that yet another year has passed and he still doesn’t have the book. For a third time, and in an angry voice, the man demands the librarian looks up the book. Before going to the card catalog the librarian reminds the man she as attempted to look up the book for the last two years but the man kept leaving before she could.
The man gets even angrier at this comment. Yelling at the librarian that not everyone looks up books in the same way. The man then tells the librarian, despite her years of training, that he will just do it his own way.
The man storms off, having not found the book. Eventually the man dies without ever having found the book.
The moral of the story?
Libraries are death traps
Thank you. I was legit worried people would get the wrong message.
Do you have a Christmas cactus and did it bloom? Mine hasn’t yet
I thought you were just sharing a day in the life of a librarian. From everything my librarian friend tells me, this is pretty on the nose.
I don’t have one, but we have a ton at the shop. Not all have bloomed yet
Derek is a mighty, beautiful sunflower in his own right
'cept his tootsies
I’m glad someone explained it because I was not getting that one lol
I have a Christmas cactus. It’s not bloomed yet. I’ll call it Derek. If it doesn’t boom, I’ll use it as an excuse to relapse (I’m just kidding) 
this is Sober Derek Christmas Cactus
but it will still count as a “trigger”, right?! lol
I bet the librarian didn’t make the guy comfortable enough. they should have put up more cozy arm chairs and healthy snacks. i don’t blame the guy.
And my @Mephistopheles Christmas carrots to guarantee me a prosperous and sober 2023 
Hyvää joulua!
One of my biggest strengths is acknowledging my weaknesses. I am absolutely powerless against booze and drugs. Anytime I put them in my body I would absolutely lose. All the willpower in the world is useless against the disease. I wouldn’t use willpower to fight cancer so why TF would I use it against addiction?
My willpower is great for getting an extra mile in on a run, or finishing that extra task a work. A program of recovery is great for treating my disease
My drugging and drinking was like a never ending game of limbo. I just kept going lower and lower.
Every day I would do something I swore I would never do in order to feed my addiction. I was crossing off “not yets” faster than I could create them.
There is no lower limit for addiction. It can, and will, always continue to get worse.
I love simplicity. It’s made my sobriety so much easier. For me I do not have to go through the mental gymnastics of “is this a relapse or not “. For me it’s very easy, if I knowingly take a drink or drug then I have relapsed. No excusing it, no justifying it, no talking my way out of it. I do this because for me any drink or drug I take must have a consequences. If nothing else happens from that drink or drug at least I have lost my nearly 2,000 days. I cannot afford to think that a drink or drug won’t come without a terribly high cost.
