Brutal honesty is a requirement for healing and growth. I could not heal and grow while I was still lying to myself and to other people. It not only enabled other maladaptive behaviors (beside the lies themselves), but also, my body knows when I’m lying, my spirit knows I am lying, and the practice of lying kept me, all of me, in a low energetic resonance; primal, animal-like, susceptible to reflexively reach for quick emotional fixes.

It’s called brutal honesty because the state of honesty I speak of is not just about telling the truth when asked a question. Oh no. There’s a whole ‘nother level. I embodied it.

Never forget how convenient lies can be. The world tends to force a person into this state/frequency/dimension of using maladapted linguistics to get ahead, make money, get away with harm, be a member of a group, and remain in the comfort-zone.

A good example is if someone is falsely accused of a crime. The courts have this thing they call a plea bargain—and it is a bargain. They reduce the price you pay for a crime if you simply admit you did it, whether you are guilty or not, THEY DO NOT CARE. The level of honesty I am talking about is that, not only do you not plead guilty, but you can’t even bring yourself to lie, no matter how convenient it may be.

You stick to the truth despite everything bad that will come of it. Not for virtue or to try to win the case with a jury. It’s deeper than that. It’s because you can’t. You just can’t. Do you know how inconvenient it is to live in this world and not be able to lie and have the ability to see all the lies?

I am not going to go through the long list of lies almost everyone swims in daily. It’s not a matter of raising your head out of the pool of lies for some air, it is getting entirely out of the pool itself. The problem is, the majority of the world is still in the pool.

No, this is not ego masturbation. Believe me when I say that sometimes I truly wish I could go back to that blissful ignorance. But the truth is, it’s not all that blissful, but I surely kept telling myself it was.

A few things started happening when I entered this new world of honesty. And this is important because it was one of the biggest invisible blockades that trapped me in the growth-stunting struggle of “staying sober”. A truth that nobody is going to talk about.

The first phase was a mild psychosis as I learned to navigate two dimensions: living physically and socially in the world of lies while living psychologically and spiritually in a world of truth.

That will drive most insane. But it wasn’t until after persevering the Dark Night of the Soul that I could notice all my blessings—because that’s part of the truth—many are already there.

After that, I had to learn how to operate through everyone’s fantasy bubble, including my own. Humans run off fantasy, not reality. The truth about reality is very inconvenient. The amount of energy that is required to change anything in this world for the better is massive, so we tend to throw a fantasy (lie) blanket over it because to change anything requires action and big changes within ourselves. It’s one thing to point out the lies, it’s another to tell the truth, and another to live it. You are not rewarded for it by most of society.

Thirdly, I found that being a walking source of truth, having the ability to see through any-and-all bullshit, many others began to be repelled by my existence, especially the ones who I once entertained the lies.

Yet, they would still come to me when they needed that honest breath of fresh air. They come to me for my outstretched hand to pull them out of the pool so they can catch their breath. Then when our conversation is over, they turn around and jump right back in.

Then there’s the distortion. A distortion in communication with those around me. Like static on a radio channel that sounds like I’m too far away. Honesty distanced me from others, those still in the pool party, and my old self who once refused to leave that pool as well.

The process is rough and lonely, for a while. But in the end, I found how detrimental my lies were to my overall health. No, doctors will not ask you how much you lie, and they are not allowed to delve into how much lying effect overall wellness. What I was most blessed by in this state of honest-being was how fast I healed and grew. How much less effort it took to not drink because the effect of drinking itself was just another huge physiological lie.

Eventually, others who live this way were magnetically drawn close. My life had sorted out the fake from the real. I could not do this intellectually. I needed to allow the vibe to do it. Can you imagine being surrounded by honest people? Can you imagine what it feels like to trust yourself?

This is why we feel good and can grow at meetings, in person. It is because, in these meetings, everyone is being honest. Nobody is dressed to impress. We come as we are, and everyone accepts it. Nobody is throwing around their job titles and bank accounts. Everyone comes in raw and we talk about real stuff. The masks are off, and all are practicing being honest in a safe space to do so.

Why?

Because the world is not a safe place to be honest with, with almost anything. But once I mastered the art of honesty, it became a shield. A shield that filtered and blocked all the bullshit. This is what jettisoned me from a state of being sober to being ME, and not the Me I had become to tolerate a world of lies.

Because, from where I sit now, I am thoroughly convinced that us addicts were not the weak ones. I believe we are the next step in evolution. I believe we used drugs to survive the lies of the world. The pressure we endured to fit the status quo and survive the blows this world hit us with led us find a release valve. Simple as that. Many remain stuck in that pressure cooker. But if we survive addiction long enough, we can learn how to exit the madness and grow into something the world needs very much.