Turning It All Over

Trust

Many of the people on this planet, not just addicts or alcoholics have a difficult time trusting, usually with good reason. We have spent a lifetime gathering evidence to prove that trusting will only lead to betrayal, abandonment, disappointment and hurt.

We have had parents or siblings throw us under the bus, sometimes it seems without reason. We have had friends sleep with our partners, some rob us of our most cherished belongings. Some just leave after many years of promising they would always be there. We have had bosses promise our jobs would always be there for us only to fire us for someone that would work for less. We have had our pastors or ministers promise things would work out if we only turned it over to God and asked for His help, then our loved one dies anyway.

Bottom line: we can all find a ton of evidence, in our own lives, to say that nothing or no one is to be trusted.

Betrayal, abandonment, disappointment, broken promises all bring with them a boat full of hurt. Each of these driving deeper into our minds that; “I am alone and the only one I can trust is myself.”

Distrust makes for a very lonely existence, isolated and ‘outside’ we may live in fear and the world is an unsafe place to be. Our response to everything becomes either ‘fight or flight’. The fear and its automatic response can become a deeply ingrained habit. We react with fear often without reason or any fact to support the fear.

Oddly, deep within, because it has no logic, we think the fear offers safety and comfort. We allow the fear to be our guide.

Where Does Trust Begin?

The loneliness, the heartbreak and the unbearable pain which usually precedes the desire to see life differently. In the book, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, “Pain is the touchstone to all spiritual progress.” Once we have reached a point of desperation and the pain becomes too much to bear, we just might become willing to try to trust. Pain drives us to desire, honesty, and willingness. Enough pain may even drive us to open-mindedness that perhaps we had been wrong. Therefore, trust begins with an open mind to the idea that maybe we have been wrong. Honesty soon follows and we can see where we have been off the mark and willingness allows us to try to let someone else into our lives.