October 14 — Honesty
“When we were wrong we probably admitted it.” — a guy mis-reading Step Ten in a meeting
I make this thing way harder than it has to be sometimes. I was sitting in a meeting when a guy was reading the Steps and he got to Step Ten and said, “When we were wrong we probably admitted it.” I chuckled, because… yeah. That’s about how I live some days — halfway honest, halfway hiding, hoping it all just kind of works out.
Then life handed me a tiny pop quiz.
I found a watch sitting on a table that wasn’t mine. A nice one. And my alcoholic brain lit up like a slot machine: You need this. It would look great on you. Nobody’s gonna know. That voice has always been fast, loud, and convincing. But then there was that other voice — the quieter one I’ve learned to trust — saying, Hey, it’s not yours. Even if you never find the owner, it’s still not yours.
Because if I take it, now I have to wear it. And if I wear it, I have to worry about who might see me wearing it. And once I start worrying, there’s no room left for God — just me, fear, and myself. That’s what dishonesty really is for me: living in a little private world I have to keep defending.
So I took it to the office nearby and walked away.
Nothing dramatic happened. No angels sang. But I left with a clear head and a clean chest. That’s honesty — not just telling the truth out loud, but living it quietly when nobody’s watching. These days, I can buy my own watch if I want one. I don’t have to steal peace in small, sneaky ways anymore. Somebody out there was missing that watch. Maybe they’ll get it back, maybe they won’t. But I know this: it was never mine to take.
What’s a small moment — maybe something nobody else even saw — where you chose honesty instead of the old familiar shortcut?
