Other People's Secrets

Years ago, while trying to survive the painful, stressful situations in my life that involved alcoholics, or drug users, it was suggested that Alanon might be helpful for me. Alanon, which is not AA, is AA's support group for families and friends of alcoholics. I learned that we should not keep the secrets of alcoholics. They taught me that helping to keep my alcoholics' phony facades intact, to continue to make excuses for them, made me a codependent and that is not a good thing to be. Now, twenty plus years later, I think I misunderstood the finer points of this credo. Up until recently, I would not keep anyone's secrets, alcoholic or not, with few exceptions. I would warn others that I don't keep secrets. I did not equate it with gossiping. I didn't realize that most people do.

The truth is extremely important to me. Trust is too. After the Alanon sessions, I didn't consider it a betrayal of trust to stick to the truth. I thought others who lied and betrayed people's trust did not deserve protection from the messes they created. I would not be a participant in the cover-up and we would all benefit in some karmic way. Maybe. Many times I have been sure that I was being lied to, but I hoped the lier would see that I was not rejecting them for it, that I was an endless well of second chances to get it right. Pretty naive, huh? What they were really learning from me was that I was dumb as dirt and there were no dire consequences in betraying my trust.

I am divorced now, so there has been a huge reduction in the amount of interpersonal crap I have to experience on a daily basis. More time to examine my own. Soon, I hope, I will have put it in its proper place and won't waste any more time on it. Over, done, move on.

We all have flaws. I believe we can not be too kind. There are still those among us who prey upon the guileless, the innocent, the kind. But now I do not see innocence, kindness, or guilelessness as only being vulnerabilities. To be kind, in the face of it's opposite, takes a strength I may not have, but I don't fear trying to do it, now.