According to those goofy online calendars, today is national regifting (or re-gifting) day. As the name indicates, regifting occurs when we receive a gift and then give this same gift to someone else.

I must have done this before. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve received regifted gifts from other people.

I don’t mind receiving regifted gifts. For one, I don’t really know if the gifts are regifted are not. More importantly, I’m getting gifts. I don’t want to look that gift horse in the mouth. Do I want to give other people regifted gifts? Well, if the gifts are suitable for the recipients, if they’re new, and it seems right, yes, I think I’d consider regifting.

There’s a lot of debate regarding whether this is an honest practice. Honest is a loaded word. It’s also a difficult thing to achieve.

Honesty is a central concept to substance use disorder, rehab, and recovery. When people are in the grip of substance use disorder, honesty might be hard to find. So many times, people abusing drugs and alcohol lie to their partners, family members, friends, coworkers, and other people, such as their doctors. Addicts take great efforts to hide their abuse from others. They might even lie to themselves and deny that they are having problems with drugs and alcohol.

Honesty is crucial to rehab and recovery. Alcohol and drug users have to be honest about their drug and alcohol problems if they want to heal themselves physically and psychologically. They have to be honest with their loved ones if they want to repair their relationships with them.

This honesty isn’t easy. Being honest with ourselves means that we have to examine the good and bad parts of ourselves. We have to be brave enough to admit that we’ve been wrong. We have to be brave enough to fix these wrongs. Being honest means we have to stop hiding and be true to ourselves.