Blog entry for:

active addiction do not apply in recovery, for most people, most of the time. it is true, i put a HUGE qualifier on what one might take to be a **positive** assertion about me and my peers and the sort lives we lead today. it is a sad fact of life, that no matter how long i stay clean, i still fall back on the behaviors and thinking patterns that ruled my life in active addiction. based solely upon my own experience, i find that trust is one of the most difficult things to earn and one of the easiest to lose. as a result, i often wonder how in the world can i trust anyone, because i am not 100% certain that they can trust me? that carousel goes round and round playing its demonic refrain, over and over again, and i get stuck in a sort of “chicken and egg” dilemma — do i trust them or do i show them they can trust me?
what it ends up coming down to, at least for this addict, is that when i STOP trying to think my way through to the solution, i can allow myself to intuitively know the next right thing to do. my behavior of learning to trust others, by dropping little “trust bombs” and waiting for the results, may have protected me in my early recovery, but do very little to foster my spiritual growth. when i choose to “test” someone's trustworthiness, i am essentially telling them that we are in a conditional relationship, pending the results of this “trial by fire.” does that mean that i need to give the “keys to my kingdom” to every single one of my peers, unconditionally and without any reservations? probably not, i am far from that healthy, yet. what that does mean, however, is that the “grain of salt” i take, can be a whole lot smaller than it used to be. i can also be a bit less guarded and show my peers the real “man behind the curtain.”
it is interesting that the topic of trust came up this morning and i morphed it into addict behavior, because i shared about one of my favorite behaviors in active addiction: the mental ledger i kept of what i owed others and more importantly what they owed me. in those days, it was that arithmetic that set my level of trust. of course it was not simply a matter if trust based on debt, mine and theirs. oh no there was a whole sort of calculus that arouse from that simple ledger and based on those intricate equations, i knew how far i could trust one of my peers or acquaintances. the “trust bomb” theory i developed in early recovery was a poor replacement for the ledger, but it certainly was a step in the correct direction. today, i am learning to trust my intuition when it comes to trusting myself, my peers, my friends and my acquaintances and for the most part, that sort of action has paid off. today, i am what i say i am and perhaps a little bit more. as i grow into the person who can be trusted, i find myself trusting others more and more, and for that i am grateful as it is awfully hard keeping one eye over my shoulder.

∞ DT ∞