โ now that i am learning to live in recovery, i find i need help โ
Posted: Fri, Mar 26, 2010 08:31:34 AM
i cannot do it alone anymore; i must take the risk of trusting another human being. well all of a sudden i GET an extra day of work. i had planned a trip out to the very eastern part of the state to visit with a sponsee who is a ward of the state of Colorado until no later than 2015. we have not met face to face in several months and his letters are getting more and more disturbing. unfortunately, he has behaved in a manner that restricts his privilege to see me, hence i get to work, and plan the trip for next Friday, maybe. what does this have to do with needing help and learning to trust my sponsor? i am clueless about that, but as i ramble through this exercise, maybe it will become clear how these two seemingly unconnected trains of thought may converge.
time to jump tracks and move into the learning to trust someone vein. trust is not something i do easily, and i have probably written before about using "trust bombs" to test how trustworthy someone is. i really do not like that part of me, no, not the needing to trust, the testing of the waters. i understand and can appreciate that my lack of being able to trust was an outgrowth of life in active addiction. i can understand that as a member in early recovery, who’s feelings seemed to change every 10 nanoseconds or so, that trusting what i was feeling was far from a safe thing to do. i can even accept that trust, like anything else is a skill that needs to be practiced, and in my case only by practicing trust will i learn to trust. so as i sit here this morning, in what feels like centuries from those early days, i am struck by being stuck on what appears to be the bottom of the trust learning curve. i am still guarded with those i have yet to meet. i still hold things back from the man i have asked to sponsor me. worst of all, i do not feel worthy of being trusted a great part of the time. so after so many days in recovery, what does this all mean? i do not know. what i do know, is there is an inventory of sorts i can take to sort it out -- namely look at the evidence and see what side the preponderance of that evidence falls on.
i have listened to more than one 5th Step, and yet i have never told a soul what i heard, nor have i used that information against the men who have trusted me with their stuff. i have never had a sponsor repeat any of my so-called dark secrets, or better put i have not heard any of them come from anyone else, so i can only assume they are safely locked away in the vaults of my sponsors’ minds. i do what i say i will, when i say i will and i show up where i have committed to be. when i take on a task i work on it tot the best of my ability until it is done. i act with integrity in most of my affairs, and hence am not only capable of being trusted, i am trusted by those with whom i share my life. so if they can trust me, i can trust myself. if i can trust myself, i can trust others, especially those men with whom i have a special relationship with, my sponsor! from there the journey to becoming a more open and trusting journey does not appear so frightening and the prospect of moving forward on such a journey is no longer so daunting. in fact, my position on that learning curve does not look quite so disappointing, and right now i feel worthy of being trusted, and worthy of trusting others.
so my spoonsee out in Burlington, will just have to trust that i will be there for him, as i will. it is only a matter of time before i will once again be able to see him. i will drop him a not, letting him know that, like me, he too, is worth trusting, just for today.
time to jump tracks and move into the learning to trust someone vein. trust is not something i do easily, and i have probably written before about using "trust bombs" to test how trustworthy someone is. i really do not like that part of me, no, not the needing to trust, the testing of the waters. i understand and can appreciate that my lack of being able to trust was an outgrowth of life in active addiction. i can understand that as a member in early recovery, who’s feelings seemed to change every 10 nanoseconds or so, that trusting what i was feeling was far from a safe thing to do. i can even accept that trust, like anything else is a skill that needs to be practiced, and in my case only by practicing trust will i learn to trust. so as i sit here this morning, in what feels like centuries from those early days, i am struck by being stuck on what appears to be the bottom of the trust learning curve. i am still guarded with those i have yet to meet. i still hold things back from the man i have asked to sponsor me. worst of all, i do not feel worthy of being trusted a great part of the time. so after so many days in recovery, what does this all mean? i do not know. what i do know, is there is an inventory of sorts i can take to sort it out -- namely look at the evidence and see what side the preponderance of that evidence falls on.
i have listened to more than one 5th Step, and yet i have never told a soul what i heard, nor have i used that information against the men who have trusted me with their stuff. i have never had a sponsor repeat any of my so-called dark secrets, or better put i have not heard any of them come from anyone else, so i can only assume they are safely locked away in the vaults of my sponsors’ minds. i do what i say i will, when i say i will and i show up where i have committed to be. when i take on a task i work on it tot the best of my ability until it is done. i act with integrity in most of my affairs, and hence am not only capable of being trusted, i am trusted by those with whom i share my life. so if they can trust me, i can trust myself. if i can trust myself, i can trust others, especially those men with whom i have a special relationship with, my sponsor! from there the journey to becoming a more open and trusting journey does not appear so frightening and the prospect of moving forward on such a journey is no longer so daunting. in fact, my position on that learning curve does not look quite so disappointing, and right now i feel worthy of being trusted, and worthy of trusting others.
so my spoonsee out in Burlington, will just have to trust that i will be there for him, as i will. it is only a matter of time before i will once again be able to see him. i will drop him a not, letting him know that, like me, he too, is worth trusting, just for today.
∞ DT ∞