Integrity in the recovery proces. Meaning what you say and saying what you mean

A few weeks ago (March 13) I talked about the role of discernment. Discernment is the process of deciding, choosing, and uncovering for yourself what is at your core and your personal truth. As part of the discernment process, integrity is essential. A quick definition of integrity is meaning what you say and saying what you mean. And for most people in the depths of addiction and compulsivity, all integrity has been lost. Trust of you by another person is built on your integrity. Early in the process, integrity is absent. Two recent examples in my practice highlight the importance of integrity.

A client who I hadn’t seen for many years let me know he celebrated 9-months free from meth use. In offering congratulations, I asked how was he able to stay sober. His response was “I discovered I wasn’t being honest about stopping. Yeah, I told you I wanted to stop, but I was still glamorizing the drug and sex.”

Another client talked about a recent use of pornography. He said “I’m not able to stop viewing porn. Oh, by the way, my wife thinks pornography is a problem, but I don’t. “

Both examples highlight the role and difficulty of integrity. Only when you’re transparent about who and what is important in your life, can you build integrity. It is imperative that you be radically honest in the process. Tell everything to your support network. If you engaged in a behavior, say so. Minimizing is a failure of integrity and feeds the acting out cycle. Sharing every interior/secret thought helps uncover the multiple rationales behind your behavior. Saying you want “A” because your partner wants “A” is a failure of integrity. Being honest about what you want, for example, reduces resentment.

Building integrity requires recognizing the disconnect between what you say and what you do, and then completing the steps toward honesty. It requires work, and conflict may ensue. There are ways to recognize the level of integrity in your life. Think about the following:

1) When someone asks, “How are you today?” do you respond with a bland response or with integrity? “It’s a good day” or “It’s a bad day.”

2) When you engage in a conversation about where to eat, for example, do you put your opinion out there, or simply “go along?”

3) When you struggle with a goal, are you sure that it is YOUR goal. Are you ready to put the work toward reaching the goal? For example, do you really want to loose the 15 lbs, or are you simply bowing to the pressures of culture saying you should when you really don’t want to do what is necessary regarding diet and exercise.

4) When your partner says, “stop that” do you agree with his/her request, or do you go along with the request to avoid conflict? For example, I agree to no porn. Or, I agree to engage in sex today.

Why does a person stop at a stop sign? The role of discovery in sexual health.

One of my favorite exercises is to ask a client: Why does a person stop at a stop sign? After a moment of confusion often based on the thought “what is the purpose of that stupid question” the client will usually respond with a nice answer that is sometimes punctuated with an attitude (and for drama, a nice roll of the eyes) of “that is so obvious.” My enjoyment is to follow-up with “Why ELSE might a person stop at a stop sign?” And the exercise continues until the person exhausts all of the answers; usually this is about 2-3 responses. Then I ask them to think of a funny reason, a silly reason, a stupid reason, an absurd reason etc. In one group setting, the group eventually identified 41 reasons why a person might stop at the stop sign. My point had been made. Until you think outside the box, your options are limited.

So often in the realm of sexuality, we assume we know the answer to the question. We’ve been taught, told, indoctrinated, forced, or otherwise encouraged to “know” the right answer that we haven’t thought about what is our response to the question “what is sexual health for me. The movement toward sexual health is a process of discovery and thinking outside the box. Your purpose in this process is to ask, “Why do I think this?” What else may be an answer, response, thought, issue, concern associated with the topic? This process is about unfolding, uncovering, and discovery. A great concept from my experience is the concept of discernment. Discernment is the exercise of discovering, uncovering, and revealing the truth within you (for those with a religious faith, this truth within is believed to be the Spirit acting in your life.).

I want to provide three simple examples where the concept of discernment helps us understand the movement toward sexual health.

In my opinion, staying in or leaving a relationship is a process of discernment. It is uncovering, revealing and discovering the health of the relationship. It requires an honest evaluation of your contribution to the state of the relationship, and assessment whether you are capable or willing to help build, repair or develop the relationship. It requires assessing whether the relationship can be transformed or declaring it should end.

What does it mean to live as a LGBT individual is my second example. There are many cultural factors (religious, family, community) that affect this process. In the end, the individual is charged with discovering what it means for him/her to live as an LGBT individual. I’ve seen it all. From an individual who knew at age 12 they were LGBT and appeared to have little difficulty in the process of living as an LGBT individual to a 70-year-old man coming out and choosing to stay with his wife of many decades.

My third example is to link discernment to sexual behavior. Ultimately it is up to you to determine what behaviors are sexually healthy. In other words, what behaviors help me grow as an individual, foster respect in my life and the life of my partner and the health of my community? As you see in the previous blogs, it is a process to discovery the behaviors that reflect and protect the values you use to shape your life.

Two notes of caution.

Discernment is a process. While the first response to what is healthy may “seem” like the “correct” response, sometimes discovering your personal truth needs time. Many times we edit or limit our thoughts, beliefs and desires. Uncovering sexual health requires you to challenge the thoughts, beliefs and values you assume to be true. Sexual health is about integration resulting from many trials and errors, experimentation, successes and trip-ups. And sexual health is about continuing the process when all seems dark.

Discernment is about responsibility. It requires you to step-up and say, “This is important to me. This is what I believe.” Too often, people avoid this responsibility for any number of fears including fear of judgment, or disapproval. Paradoxically, when you step-up and take responsibility for your journey, freedom is possible. It is also communal in sharing your choices with others. Should you say, “Yes this is me!” but fail to talk with your primary support network, I would say that you are avoiding the responsibility of your choice.