The Middle of Two Truths

By David Weitz

There is a place I find myself standing more often these days, and it is not at either extreme. It is not in certainty, and it is not in control. It is somewhere in the middle, between two truths. And if I am being honest, it feels a lot like standing in the middle of a street with traffic coming from both directions, and trusting yourself not to run into either lane.

The first truth is this. Sometimes, I see things clearly. Not because I am smarter than anyone else, but because I have lived in places I would not wish on anybody. I know what it looks like when alcohol stops being a drink and starts becoming a personality. I have seen that movie before. I know how it starts, I know how it builds, and I know how it ends if nothing changes.

So when I see that same shift in someone else, especially someone close to my daughter, it is like hearing a familiar song playing in the background. Not loud at first, just enough for me to recognize it. And once I recognize it, I cannot unhear it. That part of me does not come from judgment. It comes from memory. It comes from experience. It comes from a version of me that already paid the price for that kind of living.

The second truth is just as real, but a lot harder for me to sit with. I am not in control. Not of other people, not of their choices, and definitely not of what happens when I am not there. And that is where my mind starts trying to act like a project manager on a job it was never hired for.

Because when you have lived through chaos, you start thinking you can outthink it. You start believing that if you just get ahead of it, you can fix it. Say the right thing, send the right text, apply just enough pressure, and maybe you can stop something before it even gets started.

But what I am really doing in those moments is trying to play chess with a board that is not even mine.

And that is where the trouble begins.

Not in the situation itself, but in what my mind does with it. In Recovery, they call it imagination on fire, and that is exactly what it feels like. It is like handing my brain a lighter and a can of gasoline and then acting surprised when the whole thing goes up in flames. It does not wait for facts. It builds entire scenarios out of thin air and then convinces me they are real.

Before I know it, I am not reacting to what is happening. I am reacting to what might happen, what could happen, and what I am afraid will happen. I am living in a future that has not even been written yet.

That is the torture.

This time, though, something was different. I felt it starting. The thoughts, the urgency, the pull to jump in and take control of something I cannot control. It felt like my fingers were loading a machine gun, ready to fire off texts that were only going to make things worse.

And instead of squeezing the trigger, I put the safety on.

Mid-text, mid-thought, mid-reaction, I stopped. I told myself to stop the bleeding. Not tomorrow. Not after one more message. Right there.

Years ago, that would not have happened. Years ago, I would have unloaded everything. Paragraphs, explanations, emotions, all of it. I would have tried to force clarity into a situation that was never asking for it. And in the process, I would have burned the very thing I was trying to protect.

My peace.

Her peace.

The relationship.

I have done that before. I know exactly what that looks like when the smoke clears.

So this time, I stood in the middle. Between two truths. I did not pretend I was wrong about what I saw, and I did not pretend I had the authority to control it either. I just stood there and let both truths exist without trying to fix them.

And I have learned over years of reconditioning that this kind of pause is not weakness. It is like holding the leash on a powerful dog that wants to take off running. You are not denying the energy that animal has, even though it boils inside you like a pressure cooker about to explode. Today, I choose to redirect it and turn down the flame before I take the top off. I choose not to let that energy drag me somewhere I have already been.

The truth is, my instincts are not broken. They are trained by experience. But they do not rule my existence any longer. There is a difference between recognizing a storm in the distance and trying to control the weather. For most of my life, I did not know where that line was. Now I see it ever so clearly.

There is another part of this process that does not get acknowledged enough in recovery environments, and that is what happens after you do the right thing. Because that is when the real critic shows up. The one that does not clap when you show restraint. The one that says you should have handled it better, or questions why your mind even goes there in the first place.

That voice is old. It was built in a time when mistakes were highlighted and progress was ignored. It is like having an internal referee that only blows the whistle at me when I mess up but stays silent when I score.

However, I have been in a relearning process now for over two decades. And aside from the hard lessons that resurface, I am learning to endorse myself when all those years of practice come to bear. Not in a way that feels fake, but in a way that is honest. I saw what was happening. I stopped myself before it escalated. I protected the relationship I cherish, and I protected my peace.

That is an endorsable act! 

Because if I do not acknowledge the bricks I am laying, I will walk around like I am still standing on dirt, even though I have been building a foundation for the past twenty-two years. One decision at a time. One moment at a time. One pause at a time

So tonight, I stay in the middle. I am not rushing in to fix anything, and I am not pretending I do not see what I see clearly through the window of experience. I am just standing there, letting both truths exist without trying to force a resolution.

And somewhere between what I know and what I can’t control is where I’ve learned to live. And after all is said and done, the real outcome of a program I work so hard at turns the friction of self-torture into a verdict of not guilty if I just trust in the process.