My experience with the ice exercise made me think of people using drugs or alcohol and how difficult it is to hide such behavior. There were many times I was able to add ice into my drink without anyone noticing because there is only one other person in my home. It was most difficult during dinner time because I had to think fast about how to add ice to my drink without anyone noticing or hearing what I was doing. The most difficult part of the exercise was during dinner one evening. My husband offered to get my drink since he was getting his own. As kind as the gesture was, I obviously had to decline. He looked at me with a funny look, like why? I had to try to quickly come up with some reason to get my drink although he was right there. …show more content…
I had to constantly wear something with long sleeves to keep anyone from seeing it. I thought about moving it to my ankle but I didn’t think that it would serve the purpose of reminding me to continue with the exercise. During this part of the exercise it made me think of someone with track marks who is always trying to cover their arms to avoid others from seeing marks and potentially questioning them. The shame and embarrassment of using drugs adds to the ongoing issues that they are already experiencing. After about half of the first day I could not continue to wear long sleeves. I think that wearing long sleeves attract more people to be curious about why someone in the summer would wear long sleeves than seeing the rubber band, so I decided to stop covering up the rubber band to see if it would be noticed. There was only one incident where I thought the rubber band was spotted because I thought that my husband was looking at my wrist. When I noticed he was looking towards my hands I quickly put my other hand over the rubber band. He never asked about it so I am not completely sure if he did see it or if I was just being paranoid. I think that many users who cover their arms usually have some sense of paranoia because they are leading a secret life that either no one knows about or very few people