An Addict’s Game Plan When Confronting Career Questions in a Social Setting

In Hawaii there is little doubt that if you have been here for a while you know someone who knows someone who knows someone you know.
That cannot be said in Manhattan. Lying about your past in Hawaii is quite risky because the truth is known by someone who knows the people you are lying to. But what about other locations? What is an addict to say when she wants to make a good impression at a family reunion? How does she present herself when sobriety is new, or when sobriety is not even a thought but new associates cross her path and she thinks…maybe new people are a good idea. What can a person say to new associates or old friends who want to know what you have been doing, when what you have been doing has been drugs? Oh, the dilemma. Do you tell the truth and hope people are progressive? People are not very accepting? People are often only liberal in the abstract while they are quite disapproving with people up close and personal to them. Or do you lie? That tangled web of deception does not scare a good addict who knows how to lie and do it well. But lying works best for people you will not see again or people you do not expect to have close contact with, not when you are trying to start a new life, or maintain an old life with new people. A solution! Start something legit and then focus on your new project and keep the focus on this new phase, or try to stretch out the story of the new project (selling stuff online, for example) to make it look like you have been doing it for much longer than you have. If you need to account for more gaps in your personal face-to-face resume you can always throw in “a death in the family” to explain any downtime. If there is one thing Americans cannot stand to talk about is death, grief, mourning, and Americans are horrified by the idea of someone starting to cry in front of them, while talking about the death of a loved one. Mention “a death in the family” that knocked you for a loop, professionally speaking, and people will change the subject themselves. You can slide back into the discussion with what you are doing now, or pretending to do now, and you can keep your socially unacceptable stuff to yourself.

When you stand back from this image the form is clear, but the image blurs when you get too close. This fragmented image is a great analogy for how an addict has to present her life to normies, always keeping them distant so they cannot see the cracks in the story because her story cannot withstand close scrutiny.