The way we are treated…

Have any of you noticed clear differences in how people treat you when you’re actively drinking vs. when you’re sober? I don’t mean the obvious things like people avoiding you or judging you but in more so in terms of how people try to get away with things with one version of you and not the other. For example, I have always been able to tell when people are lying and I will always call it out the instant it happens so people don’t make a habit of trying it with me.

I’ve noticed that when I was actively drinking heavily that people around me tended to lie to me more than normal, I guess thinking that maybe I wouldn’t catch it or that I wouldn’t care or forget. I’ve also had people try to take advantage of me in different ways when I was drinking…financially, emotionally, mentally, etc. thinking that I wasn’t aware of what was happening.

I feel like people assume that, when active, we are all so consumed by our addiction that we don’t have any properly functioning mental faculties or are sitting ducks for all kinds of bullshit behavior. To add insult to injury, when you call it out or have a conversation about it, we inevitably get the alcohol thrown in our face like some sort of trump card when two things can be true at the same time. God forbid an alcoholic (dry or not) can still see as clear as day that the sky is blue and grass is green.