Rebuilding Trust

Quite often, the first consciously sober reality drug addicts and alcoholics realize is that of their closest associates, usually family, no longer seemingly to trust them. Believe it or not, to the affected, this often comes as a shocking surprise. The destruction of trust takes place at a time when the addict or alcoholic was not mentally conscious but was infact inebriated. We seem to “wake up” into a new world where trust is shattered in the opening moments of our fledgling sobriety. This new reality in and of itself can be an enormous hurdle for the newly sobered and presents its on challenge.

Six months after my on last drink, one rainy evening I was rear ended sitting still with my foot on the brake at a municipal red light. By the time I could shake the rattling shock from my head; a local municipal police officer had come upon the accident and was “working the wreck”. To a witness, the accident would have been easily obvious as to who the perpetrator was and who the victim was. The attending police officer, doing his standard sworn duty worked the accident in a text book fashion and first tended to the person at the rear of the wreck. Soon the police officer came to me and initially was polite and business like. It didn’t take long for the officer to process my driver’s license and pretty soon the entire demeanor of the wreck changed completely. All of a sudden I found myself being given a field sobriety test, questioned in regards to alcohol use, treated as if I were about to be a DUI client and the sole 100% cause of the accident!

Typically, we spend many years destroying the trust provided us as a respected birthright. In my on case, I had spent thirty one years destroying the trust the ones around me had placed in me. Just because I had finally had enough alcohol, did not in any way mean the world realized I had finally had enough alcohol. I had proven to the world that my personal best was yet another drink and that is what the world had come to expect from me. Just like I had come to the point of trustlessness one drink at a time, it would take one responsible act at a time to rebuild the trust I so desperately wanted. In time, that much needed trust did return… one drink-less day at a time.