Wanda's Ramblings

Trust

Trust

What is trust? That is quite a question if you think about it. There are many types of trust. There is blind trust, which comes easier to some than others, more on that in a minute. There is earned trust, broken trust, implied trust, etc. Anyway, trust is very personal and intimate. It is not the same to everyone so one should evaluate their views on trust once in a while or it all becomes blind trust.

Throughout much of my life I lived on blind trust. I didn’t think things through very much and just assumed everything would work out which is one definition of blind trust. I also assumed that most people had good intentions and would not bring me harm. I was proven wrong on enough occasions that I slowly moved to a position of zero trust. This was partially because my motives were entirely selfish and so I perceived everyone else as out to get me.

A leap of faith is another type of trust where the perceived promise is greater than the consequences but not guaranteed. Getting myself sober was a leap of faith and my first real act of trust in a very long time. I was lucky in that the people around me in early recovery supported me without trying to take advantage of me. I say lucky because that is not always the case and I have seen many people taken advantage of in early recovery and it made it much harder for them to trust the process and program of recovery.

I have heard it said that faith comes a lot easier with a track record and that is the same for trust. That would be earned trust. It started with my sponsor meeting me when he said he would, or the meeting hall being opened on time. As people continued to do what they said they were going to do they earned my trust.

I then had to take a long hard look at myself and see that I had earned quite the reputation for being untrustworthy. In the last few years of my addiction I had proven this reputation by chronically calling off work, not showing up when I had agreed to, stealing, and petty much letting everyone I knew down over and over. There were two sides to that coin and luckily one side was a new start with a new group of people.

The other side of the coin was the people I already knew. Promising to stay sober only to be drunk again by afternoon for 25 years shredded any trust with the wife and kids as well as friends and relatives. This is of course broken trust and the hardest to mend. In many cases it is impossible to regain broken trust. As I mentioned trust is a very personal and intimate thing and regaining trust has as much to do with the person I am trying to regain trust with as it does with my new behavior. I know people who have a very short “trust fuse” and once burned it does not get replaced.

I know of people who would never trust me again but at a certain point that is on them and not me, at least in my opinion. So again, I see that trust is very personal. Trust is something that can only be evaluated by the person giving the trust and it can be very frustrating when someone refuses to give you trust. I may feel that I have earned trust but am not looking through the same lens the person I am asking to trust me.

I do not know what that person has been through and how many times they have been burned by trusting someone. Depending on the circumstances I can be a bit of a sucker by extending a person trust when many others would not. On the other hand, I have a very short trust fuse in other circumstances such as newcomers in my Oxford House. It is unfortunate, but most newcomers are being held up to a yardstick built by others’ past failures.

Trust is one of those things that can’t be measured easily and again I may feel I deserve trust from someone who won’t extend it to me in the measure I feel I have earned. I can make charts and look at the pros and cons of trusting someone but in the end, it usually comes down to a gut feeling or instinct. Trust is not like a paycheck where I put in my hours and get paid for those hours. I may put in all of the work and time but still not be trusted by some.

So, in the end, trust is almost mystical in that it may not be easily measured and discerned by the person expecting the trust. I may simply remind the other person of someone who screwed them over before and therefor may either need extra proof to be trusted or never gain trust at all. On the other hand, I may remind the person of someone kind or trustworthy in their past and gain trust easily.

No matter how I have gained someone’s trust I have found, through painful experience, that it is something of extreme value and should not be taken for granted. When I was a firefighter I gained the absolute trust of many under my command and lost it all one night by driving a firetruck drunk. Because of that I had to leave that life behind and could never gain that level of trust back. I have regained nearly that level of trust in my recovery and sober living communities in that whether they love me or hate me, the people around me today know that I do what I say I will and protect the things I am entrusted with.

So today I realize that my actions are very important and that everything I do can affect the trust given me. I also realize that any decision I make or action I take could affect my credibility and trust levels. I also realize that things do not happen in a vacuum and that what I do in one circle could affect my trust in another circle. So, I am careful to speak the truth in all situations. And, as I have said before, the best way to avoid lying is to not do things I need to lie about.

Gaining trust involves loyalty, integrity, honesty, and consistency and those things are within my control. The trust itself is, at least somewhat, out of my control and is complicated by many parameters also outside of my control. What I have found is that if I live my life by those principles mentioned above I have the best chance of gaining and keeping trust and know that if trust is not given it is not my fault and out of my hands.

It is a shame that this kind of wisdom come to us later in life, at least in my case anyway and usually through much pain and error. I am just glad that I am reaching that point.