Are you an honest person?
I fully believe one’s answer to this question is always going to be totally dependent on their relationship to their Higher Power.
When I came into recovery from a life of addiction, my Higher Power was definitely not running the majority of my life. In fact I was, or at least I was trying to, and I was doing a very poor job of it. In turn, I was far from being an honest person, but if you had asked me this question back then, I’d probably say I was. That’s only because I wouldn’t have wanted you to think less of me. I think that’s one of the major reasons why a person lies about anything. Regardless, it wasn’t until I began working on the 12 Steps did any of this change.
The first thing I had to become honest with in the 12 Steps was myself. I lied to myself for years believing I wasn’t an alcoholic, a drug addict, a sex and love addict, a codependent, etc. When I practiced Step One with each of these addictions though, I had to admit I was powerless over it and that my life had become unmanageable, and in doing so, I also grew a little more honest in life. Although I was able to successfully practice this step in entirety, my recovery program and my spiritual life consistently came to a halt because I kept avoiding the second part of getting honest, which was with my Higher Power.
I had avoided my Higher Power for several decades by engaging in so many addictions and frankly, I was pretty afraid of what was going to happen when I finally got honest with that Higher Power. The 12 Steps helped me to overcome that fear though and led me to use prayer as a tool to start that process. And although I believed my Higher Power already knew of everything I had done in selfishness, darkness, and hate, prayer became my way of admitting it openly to my Higher Power. The more I prayed about these things and tried to turn them over to my Higher Power, the more I felt myself getting more honest in life. But there was a third and final part I still had to get honest with as I practiced these steps, and that was with everyone else.
The pattern of me being dishonest with everyone else began as a very young kid when I would lie to my mother out of fear of catching her wrath. Over the years my lies to others would grow as my addictions did. Most of the time I lied to save my ass or to gain undeserved approval, but in either case, I wasn’t an honest person on most days. Even after I began practicing the 12 Steps, I found it rather hard to break this pattern. I often glorified my recovery in meetings or to sponsees, even though I was still living toxically on many levels. Thankfully, I had a good wake-up call to this level of dishonesty when I tried to kill myself and landed in the mental ward of a hospital. It was there I realized I had not been completely honest with my Higher Power about certain behaviors in my life that I knew were toxic for me, yet I had kept right on doing them. After I prayed about each and turned them over to my Higher Power, I can truly say that the honesty that emerged in my life was finally legit. While it might have taken me a very long time to ultimately find this level of honesty in every aspect of my life, the piece that has been the driving force to making it happen is my Higher Power.
The reality is that the farther away I’ve gotten in life from my Higher Power, the more I’ve tried to run the show, be controlling, and avoid things like prayer. And the more I’ve tried to run the show, be controlling, and avoid things like prayer, the more I’ve become dishonest with myself, with everyone else, and my Higher Power too. But, the closer I’ve drawn to my Higher Power, the less any of this has happened and instead, I’ve watched myself become far more honest than ever before with myself, with everyone else, and my Higher Power as well. So I guess you could say that I’m just grateful I do have a much closer relationship to my Higher Power today, because I know my level of honesty depends on it, as does my recovery from addictions and my spiritual journey in life too.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson