Finding my Rhetorical Lense

Merideth

Professor McGinnis

English 1101

January 27, 2020

Finding Your Rhetorical Lense

I am a white thirty-seven year old caucasion woman. A big part of my identity is that I am a woman who is a recovering addict. I have struggled with addiction my whole life. For something to makeup such a huge part of my identity, I wasn’t even aware of it for a long time. I thought everybody did what I did and lived the way I did. Throughout my life I hurt a lot of people, including myself. It wasn’t until I realized my life was completely and utterly out of control that just maybe, I might have a problem. I was starting to suffer a lot of consequences from the way I was living, and that was causing some fear to kick in. I have to say that even then, I kept continuing to live the only way I honestly knew how. Time kept passing on, and nothing changed, except that I kept getting worse and worse in my disease.

Having these experiences throughout my life has changed my communication skills and rhetorical thinking in a number of ways. First and foremost, It is not socially acceptable to have the past that I have, and to also be a woman. We as women, were supposed to be ladies, and to always conduct ourselves in a “ proper way”. In my generation it was considered more acceptable for men to have addiction related problems than us women. It's unfortunate that we have to live in a world full of hypocrisy and stereotypes, and because of that my belief system started changing and inturn my communication skills differed. I grew up watching people judge others for the way they were living. I’ve watched families disown their children for having substance abuse problems. I’ve watched families lose their children and I’ve seen lots of people lose their life to this disease. I lived the majority of my life in fear, afraid of what people were gonna say or think of me. I continued to see what others went through and couldn’t fathom being treated and ridiculed for something I was powerless over. I just couldn’t understand why people faulted people for being the only way they knew how to be. People don’t wake up one day and decide they want to be an addict and ruin their lives. The world can be a cruel place at times, and that made me even more afraid to open up to people and speak about my addiction. I watched what I said and who I said it to. For something to be such a huge part of who I am, I almost felt as if I was leading a double life. The world unfortunately still doesn’t understand addiction or the effects it has on people and their families. Though, I will say we’ve come a long way now that it’s become a huge epidemic in the world.

I believe the things we go through and experience throughout life, changes our worldviews and that

determines how we communicate. I’ve allowed my experiences in the past to negatively affect how open I

am with people. Anytime I’m speaking with someone I ask myself how much are you going to offer, how

much am I going to hold back, how much am I gonna sugarcoat, am I going to be a hundred percent

transparent so they can get to know the real me or do I need to filter my delivery ? All these questions we

ask ourselves daily, depends on our life experiences. Today, I no longer feel as if I’m leading a double life.

I don’t feel as if I have to filter what I say. I am who I am and I’m comfortable with that, for the most part.

I try and help people whenever I can with my story and by shedding light on addiction. Something that

used to hinder me rhetorically no longer has such a hold on me. Today, I choose to communicate with

honesty and transparency and have the utmost gratitude and appreciation for Alcoholics Anonymous.

The one constant in life is change, rhetorically and non rhetorically speaking.