Finding my profounder self

And the limits of self deception

"For we all know how we all deceive ourselves - that is to say, how people in general, our profounder selves excepted, deceive themselves - as to motives of action."

-Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

I was reading a Charles Dickens novel recently when I read this line, buried in thousands of words, casually describing what is going through one character’s mind as he tries to rationalize what he’s about to do. I love how Dickens pauses the narrative to speak this aside to the reader, temporarily breaking the pretense of the fiction to connect with us on a universal truth - that we lie to ourselves about why we do things. But then he inserts a caveat - except our profounder selves. When we try to deceive ourselves, we only partially succeed. Deep down we know what we’re really thinking, or why we’re really doing what we’re doing. Sometimes, though, it’s buried so deep that we can’t see it. Maybe it’s just a feeling, a discomfort, a nagging sensation. 

When I drank, I spent a lot of effort trying to tell myself that I wasn’t really feeling that nagging sensation. I appreciate the phrase “mental gymnastics” to describe this phenomenon. Before deciding to open a bottle of wine, I would explain to myself why it was OK, why it was normal and healthy to have wine every day. I could skip it if I wanted to, but I don’t want to. It’s a small joy in my life - there’s no harm in letting myself experience a small joy, is there? I don’t feel compelled to drink, I just feel like enjoying a drink. And it’s a nice bottle of wine, it’s fun to taste the subtle notes of terroir, to experience the aroma, to identify the hints of chocolate, or raspberry, or whatever else is on the label. Really, drinking this wine is an intellectual exercise. You know people take tests on this stuff? And besides, wine is good for you. There was an article about that in the New York Times just the other day. 

At some point I would land on the conclusion that it’s not normal to internally debate the merits of having a glass of wine to this degree - that must be something only alcoholics do. Since I’m not one of them, I should just shut up and have the glass of wine already. All this internal rationalization and feigned self-deception was only an issue when I was sober. I had to convince myself it was OK to take the first drink, and the second drink. For many years, I forced myself to stop there - two drink maximum. That was the hardest thing. I looked forward to the special occasions on which I granted myself an exception to the two drink rule. A special occasion was defined as any time I was in the company of anyone in addition to myself and my wife. The pandemic made clear the degree to which I depended on special occasions. 

The thing I loved about special occasions was the ability to take a break from the mental gymnastics that normally took up so much of my brain’s capacity. After the third drink it didn’t matter so much. I could relax. The voice in my head would change from an anxious, nagging source of doubt, to a happy voice of light hearted fun and entertainment, feeding me sarcastic jokes and pithy lines that I would repeat out loud, convincing myself I was the life of the party (more self deception). The sense of relief that came with the change of mood of the voice in my head was palpable. I longed for it when I didn’t have it, and I resented people who seemed to live with the happy voice all the time. Or maybe those people don’t have any voice at all? Maybe not everyone has the nagging, self doubting, rationalizing, agonizing internal monologue that rages on and on insidiously at all waking hours? We all know how we all deceive ourselves.

The first step of Alcoholics Anonymous is to admit you are powerless over alcohol and that your life has become unmanageable. It’s a tough sell when you have a successful career, with a wonderful family, plenty of money, no legal problems, and no externally apparent issues at all. But life can be unmanageable in many different ways, not all of them visible to outside observers. That wasn’t my initial assumption. I used to think that if you were powerless and unmanageable it meant you were homeless, drunk all day, and incapable of any kind of human functioning. Dickens has characters like this in his novels. He sums it up in an early story: “drunkenness—that fierce rage for the slow, sure poison, that oversteps every other consideration; that casts aside wife, children, friends, happiness, and station; and hurries its victims madly on to degradation and death.”¹

I found it was easy to dismiss any incubating concerns, to deceive myself, as long as I wasn’t that bad. There was always somebody who had it worse, and plenty of fellow drinkers who could encourage me in my deception. It wasn’t until after I stopped drinking that it became more clear that I didn’t drink because I liked wine and appreciated its artisanal qualities (although those things were true). I drank because I needed to drink to escape the voice in my head. It scared me to think of life without drinking. I couldn’t imagine a day without wine. Alcohol, I realized, wasn’t my problem - it was my solution. Solution for what? Just for getting through each day, for escaping the need to contemplate reality, for suppressing anxiety, for thinking about hard things. It was my solution for life. Even if I didn’t use it to debilitating extremes, I depended on it. And I knew that I depended on it - deep down, I knew that I drank because I had to drink, not because I wanted to drink. Admitting that to myself, though, was the most terrifying idea. And I avoided it for many years. 

For me, the first step in resolving my tendency to deceive myself was to stop drinking. I didn’t admit anything to myself or anyone else. I just said “I think I need to stop drinking.” And I started to come to terms with the reality of life without my daily dose of its antidote. Mornings were easy because I never drank in the morning anyway. Afternoons were harder because that would be the time I would start to look forward to my first glass of wine. Evenings were very hard. What do I do with my mind if I’m not distracting it with work, and not having a drink? There are plenty of distractions available, not all of them healthy or constructive, though many better than finding relief in alcohol. But distractions, I discovered, only got me through the next hour (or the next few minutes). I found myself looking forward eagerly to bedtime. When life was not challenging, I found it to be boring. The monotony of my routine had always been there, but now it was more exposed, more obvious, harder to deny. Routine itself was not the problem - I love routine, I love doing the same thing at the same time every day. It makes me feel good. But there was something missing - the daily routine felt monotonous because it was empty somehow, despite all the wonderful things I had in my life. I went on like this for some time. Over a year, until I hit a point where I felt I couldn’t keep “powering through” as if nothing was wrong. 

Some people might say what was missing was god. Phrases like “I had a god-sized hole” or “I was spiritually bankrupt” are common refrains among people who have been in AA for a long time. That didn’t really make sense to me when I first heard it. I don’t know what god is to me, so it was too abstract. People said we all understand god differently and it’s a matter of figuring out what god is to you. Great, but how? What does that mean? It feels like when people in AA talk about god it’s shorthand for something else. Other people seemed to understand what that something else was, but I didn’t. Despite my ambivalence and lack of understanding about what god means to me or if god is the missing element in my life, I found that going to AA meetings, working with a sponsor, and doing the steps, made me feel good. 

I’ve been active in the program for just over one year, and I’m still ambivalent about what god is to me. But, whatever is happening in AA, it’s working. I no longer feel the need to deceive myself, and my inclination to distract myself, or to escape from myself or my surroundings has been reduced significantly. I feel good just sitting, listening, thinking. Time feels like it’s going by fast, even when it’s slow. I feel more like I want to hang on to time rather than get through it. That’s a new sensation for me. Perhaps I’m more in tune with my “profounder self”.  For now, I’m inclined not to try to explain it or understand it, but just to enjoy it. 

1. Wikisource contributors, "Sketches by Boz/The drunkard's death," Wikisource , https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Sketches_by_Boz/The_drunkard%27s_death&oldid=13658120