Lying to Tell the Truth (Lest You Reveal Your True Identity as a Truck Stop Hooker)
My favorite cousin (official title: BFFC, and also living proof that my bad behavior is at least mostly a result of the contents of my gene pool), has generously bequeathed unto me many invaluable Dating Advice treasures such as, "You don't take that shit from a seven!" And, "A good dicking never hurt anyone!" One protip from which I could have reaped a lot of benefits, had I been smart enough to implement it, was, "Don't tell him THAT yet! Wait until he's already in love with you and THEN drop the truthbomb!"
I've learned that there's a reason that, on a first date, you should definitely not reveal to someone, say, that you can measure, with complete accuracy, the extent to which your day was good or bad in milligrams. It's not because your date is going to be freaked out by your admission (although they might very well be freaked out by that, too); it's that they're going to be freaked out by the much, much worse thing that your admission implies. Nobody's telling the whole truth around here, and, if confessing your love for all things poppy-derived is what you're leading with, what kind of crazy are you following with? Are you a truck stop hooker (nothing against truck stop hookers - I don't judge)? Are you the Zodiac killer (ok, that, I probably would judge you for)?! Because that's where it seems like this is going.
In a world where lying about oneself is accepted as a matter of fact, in order to tell the truth, you have to lie. You have to lie until it is safe to reveal the truth. When we present ourselves to a new potential partner, we lie to avoid losing the possibility of finding love. When we present ourselves to society writ large, as active drug addicts, we lie to avoid losing everything.
The Crazy Dark Past narrative is ubiquitous in our society, from the classic addiction memoir to the Jesus Plucked Me from My Dirty Sinpit and He Can Save You, Too! Sunday School testimony. Crazy Dark Present narratives, however, are few and far between (although they do exist - Cat Marnell comes to mind; just take a look at how widely-reviled she is if you want to understand why other drug users keep mum). It's not until it's over, when we can tell our story, not as "how I am," but as "how bad it really was," that society writ large can accept the Story of Us.
I'm not filing a complaint, here; I did it, too. Not because I felt that I was living a dark present, but because I had to protect myself. That's why most of us refrain from telling the story of addiction until it's over - not out of guilt, but out of self-preservation.
No two addicts share the same story, but in our invisibility, we become one. Our silence reduces us to our stigma - nothing more. We use for reasons as varied as the ones that bring people to WalMart - are they looking for shampoo? Tomatoes? Furniture? The feeling of acceptance? The numbing of old wounds? Maybe just the eradication of boredom?
I wish I could have told this story sooner. Before it was past tense. I commend those brave enough to tell theirs when it was not culturally acceptable to do so. I can do one thing to rectify that regret, though: I can tell my story, without the stigma. I know that, for many users, shifting from grey to that black-and-white narrative, whether we fully believe in its validity or not, is a necessary act of self-preservation. I understand why this must be. There are still many of us who see grey, however, and, once we acknowledge it publicly, we release our fellow addicts from the BAD DRUGS BAD BAD BAD ideology that keeps them from becoming their healthiest selves. Maybe the best place for you doesn't fit into the terrible drug user/righteous teetotaler paradigm; that doesn't make you the Devil's most unsavory dance partner. It makes you an individual. That's a story worth telling.
