The saying goes, “We’re as sick as our secrets.” I now also think that “We’re as sick as our stories.” My sponsor surprised me when we did our first Fifth Step by limiting my second column sharing to “ten words or less.” I was ready to explain the psychological nuances of everyone listed in my Fourth Step. He limited me because, “more than ten words, and you’re justifying bad conduct and certainly a false belief in victimhood.”

When I came into recovery, I had a very false sense of self and of reality encoded as a story. The stories I told about why I acted out, why I practiced character defects such as lying only reinforced the patterns of thinking and acting that constituted my addiction. As I imagined a new self in the Seventh Step, my stories shifted.

Going even further is not having stories. Much of what constitutes “knowledge” is an outside issue to my recovery, to the main purpose of my life. I do not need to make a story of the facts at hand but simply act on them. Even the story of my recovery changed as I drew closer to my Higher Power. I am not as certain as I used to be of reasons why things happened. The truth is so simple, it does not seem to reside in the complexities of a narrative but rather in the frame in which every narrative resides—a loving Higher Power who was always calling me to peace and health (the “Great Reality” found deep inside each of us, AA 55).

I used to say, “it’s complicated” when asked about why I was not living up to my marital or parental duties. It was only complicated because I could not face the simple truth that I was committing adultery and taking advantage of women. My sponsor had to apply labels such as “adulterer” and “sexual predator” to me to help me break through the complex lies I told myself and others.

Stories change as truth becomes manifest in our actions. For example, the story of the acting-out partner with whom I hit my SA bottom changed quickly in recovery. When she left, I had a clear and not very charitable diagnosis of her life and motives, of how she had harmed me, and why she was wrong to leave. Now I only know that her greatest gift to me was leaving me, was walking away from my toxicity. There’s not much of a story left other than, “I lied, I cheated, I manipulated, and the results were painful.” This reminds me of the Big Book, “Years of living with an alcoholic is enough to make any wife or child neurotic” (AA 122). Since “I’m the key” (SA 133) I have no interest in disentangling who caused what.

In surrendering even the stories I tell, I feel more free, lighter, more certain of the Truth. I don’t have a strong opinion about my family of origin issues or why I am an addict, why people in my life act the way they do. I am certain that a Higher Power was always there, quiet, simple, and true.