Honesty

[MajestyJo]

Honesty is the principle of the first Step. Along with it acceptance and surrender is needed to take this Step 100%.

The rest of the Steps can not be worked to the best of our ability if we don't learn to attain these three things.

We need to have a truly honest look at ourselves and find out who we are. To do that we need to work the 12 Steps and to do that, I need to start with the First!

I had trouble getting honest because I used people, places and things for so many years to stuff my feelings and to hide my true self because I feared you would not love, like, accept, and be my friend. I feared rejection, abandonment, disapproval and I looked to you for validation because I could not find it within myself.

I didn't know what I was feeling, I couldn't put labels on things and people would say, "How do you feel?" I didn't know. It was only by going to meeting, hearing others share that I could identify my feelings and behaviors, postive and negative so that I could get honest about them and deal with them. As long as I compared, I stayed sick. I wasn't that bad. I didn't do that. Well I didn't drink or drug, so I am better than they are. Not knowing that my codependency and caretaking lead to the same soul sickness and that I was often more sick than the alcoholics that were in my life.

I used cigarettes and food, work and service to stuff and to hide from my feelings and even in recovery, I stayed sick until I could find true honesty. I had cash register honesty. I could be kind and carrying and yet there were times I would tell white lies so I wouldn't hurt you, but then my motive and intent was generally because I didn't want you to not like me if I was truly honest with you. I learned that it wasn't so much what you said, but how you said it that mattered.

The truth had to come out. I had to find the true me. In order to find my truth I had to get honest, have a close relationship with my Higher Power and allow His unconditional Love transform me into a loving person who was able to let go of bitterness, resentment, an unforgiving heart, anger, guilt, shame, etc.

It was a process. It didn't happen over night. I didn't get sick over night, so I didn't find self-honesty all wrapped up in a package that I could just grap and hold onto.

As the blinders came off, the heart and mind opened, the ear became willing to listen, and I took down the barriers and eliminated the blocks that I had put up in self-defense, I was finally able to allow myself to become vulnerable and open for healing. I had to let go of the darkness and bring it to the Light so it could be healed. I had to shapeshift the old reality and create a new based on my truth and my self-honesty.

I also found that my truth may not be someone else's and even though some one may not agree with me, I had a right to stand up for what I believed in if it came from my God. What I had to do was get honest and decide whether it was my self-will or my conscious self that was making the decision and whether I was being empowered or whether I thought I was the power.

Like so many other things in this program, it took practice, practice, practice. God is as He reveals Himself to me in today.

Love this picture. Found it a long time ago. To me it speaks of the Inner Self. Personal Empowerment, the Goddess within, whatever you want to call it. It was about being aware of the presence of it and building an honest relationships with it.

[MajestyJo]

"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

If you come here and are done using, you can't work the program bad enough; if you're not done using, you can't work the program good enough.
How is that for a statement about getting honest? The program only works if you are honest, open minded and willing. If you are not willing to stay clean, if you are not willing to stop all substances, if you aren't willing to follow the suggestions, there is a very good chance you won't stay clean and sober.

They are suggestions, but there are a lot of darn well betters or you are going to find yourself back out there and wondering what happened.

If you want to get honest, don't use, don't pick up, go to meetings, get a home group, get a sponsor, continue to go to meetings, work the steps, get involved in service within your group, work the steps, just showing up at your group and taking a seat at your group is service, standing at the door and putting your hand out and saying, "Hi my name is..., I'm an alcoholic or, "Hi, I'm an addict, Do you do hugs!" I try not to invade someone space seeing as I am old. I like to let them know that even though I am old I still do hugs.

There is not test, there is no right way or wrong way to work the program. If there had been, I would have failed and a lot of people would probably would have failed me. I was told by a lady who was one of the powers that be, that I had relapsed because I left the stronghold of AA and went to NA for my what I needed in my recovery at the time. I was furious. I was never going to go back to AA. Laugh, I was so ingrained with AA, so saturated with it, you couldn't get it out of me if you tried, it comes out of my pores every time I open my mouth. LOL!

Even in today, even though I don't get out to meetings, I probably talk more country than most people. Then God throws those little bonus connections in at FB, at the mall, and on the telephone.

Don't know if it was the fall, or all the prayers that were sent my way, but I do thank everyone, because my head is a lot clearer tonight.

God bless everyone.

[MajestyJo]

Honest, Open Minded and Willingness go together. It is how the program works. You have to open your mind to new ideas, concepts and ways of healing, and I had to be willing to put things into action.

If you are staying in today, you are dealing. If you are still clean and sober, you are dealing. Only you can answer that question.

There is a quote that says, "You are not your disease."

The part you don't want to let go of, I would say is your Disease trying to hang on, and not wanting you to let go and let God.

You know from AA, that the person that was is no more. Use that same hope and faith, and apply it to your OA program. Remember that F.E.A.R. is "Face everything and recover." or "Flee everything and run (to the kitchen)."

Respect who you are in today. Don't let others compare the addict past to the person in today who works a good program. No matter where you go, remember to take you Q.T.I.P. with you. "Quit Taking It Personal!" The skunk means "Respect." Don't let anyone stink up your personal space.

[MajestyJo]

Honesty Feb 24, '09 2:35 AM from one of my Multiply sites that was deleted.
by JoAnne for everyone

Getting honest, self-honesty was difficult. I had lied to myself for so many years that it was hard to face the reality of my life. I had ignored my needs for so many years, I didn't know what I needed for myself.

I had lived my life through other people all my life and what every they wanted, I agreed, role played and wore the mask I needed to fit in and get along with no honest thought if it was good for me or if it met my needs. I didn't know I had them, and that I had a right to have them filled.

I was used by so many people that it was difficult to recognize that it was abuse and that I no longer had to put up with it and that I could set boundaries and take care of myself.

When I came into recovery, I had to put my sobriety first. I had to get honest with me and look at what I needed for my own growth and healing.

With my upbringing, I had been cash register honest. I remember feeling guilty because I walked out of a store wearing a thimble I forgot that I had tried on. I wasn't even in the department for me, I was with my girlfriend. I never did the 'sew' thing. I even remember that the thimble cost 45 cents. Needless to say, that was a long time ago. It happened before I started drinking. When I got honest, I realized that I had stollen time from my employers, I took sick time and often stayed home from work and school as a result of my father and mother. I robbed me of many things as a result of it and had to make amends to myself in many areas.

As the Big Book says, I was judging me by my intentions and others were judging me by my actions. I had to learn to walk my talk. I realized that this was a 24 hour program, not a 2-4 hour a day program. It was for living and the more I got honest the more I healed. They told me I was only as sick as my secrets. There was my secrets and those of others, that I had taken on and had to let go of and recognize what was mine and what was not. I had to recognize what no longer served me in today and were feeling, thoughts and actions as part of my 'isms' of my disease and find what I needed to recover.

When I could get honest with me, I could be honest with you. I use to be highly offended if anyone even suggested that I was a liar. In fact I halled off and slapped a girl and sent her flying because she did. She was 4'11" and 100 lbs. and a mouth twice her size. It ended up it was the culmination of a lot of things and I lost it. She was my sister's best friend and I had gotten a job in my department at work. It was a combination of her actions at home and at work. It was not a good thing working and living with someone, especially when she felt like she had to make up for her lack of size with agression. She was standing beside the bed in the spare room and she landed on it. She had told me something would fit and I said it wouldn't and if you tried to make it fit it harmed other things. She kept arguing and was verbally abusive and I reacted. I never realized that the person I lied to the most was myself. It was one of the few times I acted out my anger instead of internalizing it.

Honesty is one of the main principles of this program needed to work all of the Steps.