Older Addicts/Alcoholics Are the Best Liars!! 

(Note: I have been thinking for awhile now about how lying and addiction are intertwined.  The credible stories about MJ’s drug addiction this past week were the catalyst for writing this post.  It’s not about MJ or anyone in particular.  It is about anyone suffering from addiction/alcoholism.)

I am a liar.  There.  I said it.  I am an alcoholic too. Lying and alcoholism go together like _______ (insert your favorite expression here).  For the point of this post, addiction may be substituted for alcoholism, and addict for alcoholic.  One can argue about the similarities and differences, but one thing is certain: Alcoholics and addicts are liars.  Do not be deceived.  There are no exceptions.

When I was in my early twenties (early 1970’s) I worked as a psychiatric attendant in a psychiatric unit of a major university medical center hospital.  It was a fantastic experience on so many levels. I interacted with people at some of the worst moments in their lives.  Some were depressed and suicidal, some in full blown manic episodes (aka bipolar disorder), some homicidal, some withdrawing from drugs/alcohol, some psychotic , some with obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD) to the point of not being able to function, people with eating disorders, Alzheimer’s, dementia and just about every curse that can be visited on man.  Right. (Some people just had curses put on them and they needed relief.  One of the staff psychiatrists specialized in “root removal” – the southern version of having a curse put on you.) The patients on the ward were young, old, in-between, rich and poor, black and white. It was a privilege to work there, to see people get better and to be a part of their recovery.  It was also an incredible training/educational opportunity for me as I got to participate in all kinds of classes and seminars. But I digress…

So back to the lying thing.  One day on the ward a young medical doctor was admitted for drug addiction issues. He was the Chief Resident in Cardiology, was bright and engaging, and had his whole life in front of him.  He also was self-injecting drugs and had become addicted – and had gotten caught. Now he was a patient in a locked psychiatric unit in the hospital where the day before he was saving lives on the heart unit.  I met him within the first hour that I came on duty.  He was charming and witty and it didn’t seem to me that anything was wrong.   Several days went by and he just kind of hung out on the unit. The attending psychiatrist had placed him on “Cannot Leave the Unit” orders.  This meant that he could not leave even with an escort to go anywhere in the hospital.  One Sunday morning, the charge nurse who ran the place like a field marshal in a war, managed to get permission to take him for a brief walk to his office.  She was told to take two male attendants with them, and I was one of them,   and to never let him out of sight.  We walked him to his hospital office to get some articles and journals he needed.  Later that day we were all summoned to the nurse’s station to explain how he had gotten the drugs that he smuggled back onto the unit.

I was young and confused.  We pieced it together and –of course—it was in the journals/articles.  The attending physician sat us down and told me something I have never forgotten.  “The best addicts are the best liars. The smarter they are, and the older they are, the better liars they are. Addicts don’t get to be old if they’re not good liars.  They die first.” I have never forgotten that point. Never.

I later became an alcoholic.  I don’t know when I crossed that line, but I did cross it. I told a lot of lies in my drinking days.  I lied to family, friends, parents, co-workers, bosses, therapists, police, lawyers, and judges. I lied for years. I lied to myself all the time.  Call it denial, rationalization or whatever else.  Bottom line is that I was lying -- all the time.  My truth is that I would say anything to anyone at anytime as long I thought that it would buy me more time.  More time to drink again.   Maybe in twenty minutes, maybe tomorrow.  That was all that mattered.  I actually “believed my own bullshit” at times. I was so facile at lying that even I believed myself at times.  Now friends, that’s scary. My truth is that the only thing that mattered in the whole world was to be able to drink. This is hard to explain to non-alcoholics/addicts.  It is not logical.  If it were, this problem would not be so vexing and intractable.  Lying allowed me to buy time, and time meant chance for another drink.

So here’s the deal.  If you are an active alcoholic/addict, you are a liar and not to be trusted.  If you are the friend, co-worker or family member of an active alcoholic/addict, remember always that they are first liars, and do not believe them.  This is hard to do. Very hard to do. Follow your instincts.  If you think they might not be telling the truth, they’re not.  Now we enter into the whole arena of enabling and that is outside the scope of this post. When one “believes” a liar, then all you are doing is helping them learn to lie a little better, and perhaps postponing an earlier death. I have buried relatives and acquaintances who have died young from the ravages of addiction and alcoholism. Looking back, they were all liars when it came to their addiction. I hang around lots of alcoholics and addicts. The clean and sober ones have learned to tell the truth.  The ones active in their addiction have not. One of the several wise men who have helped me in my sobriety once said to me “George, I really don’t care what you think, or how you feel about things.  All I care about is what you do.” I have never forgotten that point.  Never. 

Is it helpful to always challenge an addict’s lying, or to somehow call them on it?  Not always, but don’t get sucked into the lie. Let them solve their own dilemmas, earn their own money, find their own place to live and so on.  If they survive to learn to tell the truth, someday they will be grateful to you for not believing the lie. And that is the truth.