Your Personal Hologram:The Importance of Integrity in Your Sober Friendships

Do you know what a hologram is? It’s those 3-D pictures, right?

Something you may not know— Every single piece of a hologram contains a different perspective of the whole image. 

There is also the concept of a personal hologram. It means that a way you show up in one area of your life can give you insight into a way you show up everywhere else in your life. 

I have been thinking about writing this post for months, but held back out of fear of making waves. But I decided to get real even if it makes people feel uncomfortable. I mostly want you to know that this isn’t about any particular person, it’s about patterns I’ve observed and considered in my own life. So here goes…

I’m sure I’m not the only sober person who looks back at their past with chagrin because of all the untruths. Lies, even. There is a lot in my past that I’m not proud of– times where I snuck around, and did things in secret that felt shameful. Many of  my lies where those of omission– things like pretending like I was sober when I wasn’t. But there was a lot more than that. When I review those memories, I feel a heaviness in the pit of my stomach. 

I choose differently now. 

Now that I’m sober, honesty and integrity have become guiding forces in my life.

Deep down in my inner knowing, I sense how important it is for me to live my life in alignment with my values, for my actions to be consistent with my words, and to keep promises to myself and others. Because I know that how I show up in one area of my life is how I show up in all the other areas of my life. 

Every small act of integrity helps me rebuild my self-concept as someone who is open, honest, and trustworthy. And in turn, this self-concept drives my actions, which then reinforce my self-concept, and so on. 

In  sobriety, these opportunities to keep  promises are opportunities to live in integrity, and are crucial to creating the meaningful, fully present life you want—which includes social interactions. 

How often do you say you are going to spend time with someone, or attend an event, and then when it’s time to actually get dressed and leave the house, it seems easier just to not, so you don’t? 

If you take a look at your own social habits, what patterns can you see?  

Keeping social promises starts, of course, with discerning whether you are making promises that you truly can keep.

 I have a friend who in the past, had a habit of completely overscheduling herself. I’m not sure if she was driven by a fear of missing out, or of pleasing others, or maybe a little of both, but it was common for me to receive frantic phone calls as she was on her way from one commitment to another, telling me that she was either going to be incredibly late or that she wasn’t going to make it after all. 

My perception of her, created over time, was that she wasn’t dependable, and that she didn’t put much value on our relationship.

Next, be honest with yourself whether or not you are making social promises that you truly intend to keep.

A behavior pattern I’ve seen that is extremely damaging both to relationships, and to a person’s self-image, is when people treat their social calendar like a card game. They say yes to invitations, and then cancel when “something better comes along” as if they are trading out cards to get the best hand for the weekend.  

Or the pattern is that they cancel because when it comes down to it, they just “don’t feel like it”,  so they don’t. 

If this is you— you may get some short-term happiness from the experience you’ve chosen to prioritize, but the cumulative long-term effect is that you are harming the positive self-image that results from you consistently using self-control to follow through on your original commitment. 

Think of how this parallels a commitment to sobriety.  

I’ve said YES to a sober life. It is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself and my long-term self-image, happiness, and life satisfaction.

If I’m in the habit of making promises, and then breaking them whenever things get challenging in the moment or it just seems easier to not keep my promise, then there are a thousand times I could have made an excuse and drank. 

The more I make and break promises, the more I see myself as someone who does that, and the self-concept drives my behavior, which reinforces my self-concept, and here we are stuck in the cycle. 

Daniel Kahneman, who’s been called the world’s most influential living psychologist, says that to be satisfied with life, we need to live a meaningful life, which includes exercising the muscle of self-control. The way you choose to experience your world moment-by-moment, and the small, everyday actions you take create meaning. 

If you want to live a fulfilling, wholehearted, fully present life, I invite you to notice how you show up in one place, because that may give you insight into how you show up everywhere. 

Learn to trust yourself by keeping promises. And as you attract like-minded new friends into your life, you’ll be building on a foundation of trust, and mutual respect. 

The end reward of meaningful, healthy relationships can’t be overstated. You are worth it.

And by the way, that overcommitted friend is now sober, and she’s one of the most reliable people I know.