Let me share a little game with y’all. It’s not terribly fun, and it’s challenging. Your efforts will go unnoticed and yet I feel as though playing this game makes me a better person. Fractionally. But if implemented consistently it’s like death by a thousand cuts, but the opposite. Life by a thousand cuts? It’s not really that kind of game.
I came late to the party, but I discovered accountability in the end. It has been something I shirked most of my life, knowing the word but not understanding the meaning deep enough to understand the value. A born politician I’ve been “economical with the truth”, to quote my mother, since my youth. Manipulation is a hallmark of the addict and withholding information is indeed a form of manipulation, a shade too close to gaslighting for my tastes. Minimizing is a sly,
generally, subconscious attempt at not quiiiiiite withholding information, downplaying, trying to convince your audience of the unimportance of the “tiny” detail with your tale, that is JUST a tiny detail.
It was just one time. It was just a mistake, a drink, a joke, a fling. A tiny word subconsciously packing a heavyweight blow. What we are saying is “I will tell you how to feel”, by setting the parameters of the sentence with an unobtrusive word hidden within.
I purposely do not let my girlfriend know I have “just left the gym and I will be home soon”. I have simply and wholly “left the gym and will be home soon”. One point for the good guys. I’m not going to “just have a coffee” as though it's a quick event you need not burden yourself with. “I’m having a coffee”, and that may take some time, that may impact you and you can choose your reaction from here. I will have my coffee in its entirety.
The points accumulate, they are never tallied nor redeemed, yet when I go to sleep at night I lay my oversized head down in peace knowing I’ve filled my day taking steps to not assert my influence upon anyone. And that my friends, is a big win when looking back I see now how much of a deceitful life I was living. Life spiraling faster and faster, falling apart as my addictions grew stronger. Trying to control everything I could through an ever-weakening pack of lies, thinking I was in control by using shitty attempts at manipulation in every sentence.
It’s accountability that was missing. When asked what it was that got me sober, I never have an answer. It wasn’t rehab, I started using two weeks out. It wasn’t NA, AA or any of the number of recovery groups I tried. Counselling, though I am an advocate and participant from time to time, was not a good fit for me in my early days of recovery or while continuously relapsing. I didn’t know the language, didn’t have the emotional vocabulary to get my feelings across. Every feeling I had was labelled anxiety which landed me on a number of high dosage anxiety medications for a number of years. Eventually finding one that sat well with me I was able to get a handle on that aspect of my life while learning to show up. To be accountable.
Accountability isn’t to be shown. It’s doing the right thing when no one is looking. For a hedonist like myself, it took spades of discipline. Still does, and I don’t always get it right. But playing my little game I’ve found it to be a good way to stay conscious, to be aware and to speak with intent. Nobody can see it, I’ll never raise a trophy but I’m winning every time I stop myself from using a word to manipulate someone else's thoughts to suit my pleasure.
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