You're only as sick as your secrets

I am old enough to have lost friends to alcohol and drug addiction. I am also old enough to have friends that would not be here if they hadn't gone to rehab. If I were to line up everybody I knew, I would not be able to tell who were the addicts and alcoholics, at least untill they started talking! The alcoholic is a lier and lies all the time. They get so good at it they convince themselves they do not have a problem. The lies usually continue till there is an event such as an overdose, car crash, DWI, or some kind of fall that presents evidence that can not be denied. At which point if the addict or alcoholic has an ounce of sense left or a loved one with great powers of persuasion, there will be a break through in the denial. The alcoholic will admit he or she has a problem and get help or at least began to think about getting help.
I was one of those who held on to the ideal that I could beat my addiction on my own. I lived with that mentality a long time. I did not think I was an alcoholic because I did not drink every day. Then I began to drink every day but it took years of that untill I bottom out and started going to AA. I never had the objectivity to decide the severity of my addiction. I minimized it for a long time. I sought out others just like my self so I could convince myself I was not as bad as the person next to me. What I really needed to hear was "get professional help" not "oh just have one more, it won't hurt you"
Today my life is pretty much an open book, I don't keep many secrets. I don't lie to myself, I am an alcoholic. If I were to ever keep that secret to myself I would be as sick as my secrets. Around the last of September I will celebrate 7 years of sobriety and that fact will never be a secret!