Trust. Now there’s a great word. I trust you. I don’t trust him. I heard that second statement, while I was sober. I never forgot it.
I really don’t blame the person, who said that. After all I had put that person through, while I was drinking, this was the result. No trust.
By the time I reached this program, I didn’t trust anyone. Even God. Maybe especially God. I had lost faith in anything and everything. Only time and unlearning all the bad things in my life and working the Steps was going to change that. Eventually it did.
When that person said that, I had only a few years in the program. I hadn’t achieved a long record in not drinking. Who would trust a drunk, who might just pick up a drink again? I had a lot of amends to make, but I would have to have a track record of not drinking and be able to demonstrate my commitment to living a sober life, if these amends were to be accepted by anyone I knew. Like the BB said, I was a tornado roaring through the lives of others.
We were talking about the 9th Step today. About making these amends and earning the trust of others. The word “amend” means to change. I had to bring the evidence of my change to those I owed amends to before anyone would accept them. I was going to have to earn their trust. Only after a period of time was this possible.
I’ve often repeated what the 12&12 says at the beginning of the 9th Step. Prudence, good judgment, a sense of good timing, and courage. Maybe not in that order, but close enough. Where was I going to get those qualities in my life? How? That’s where the restoration of faith in my life; faith in others came in. Trust in others, mainly my sponsor and other alcoholics to begin with. He helped me to aspire to prudence. It was him, who helped me with that sense of good timing and the good judgment I had difficulty coming up with. And the courage? That came, not only from his support, but from my higher power.
I was thinking about this after the meeting and from conversations with others. I was able to establish that trust, because I was going to need it. A couple of my amends, early on, were rejected, and without that trust I might not have had the courage to go on with the rest. But I did and I’m grateful for being able to receive the trust I have received from so many as the result of these actions.
Bill W. called this phase of the process in getting sober a great adventure. It was for me. It cleared a lot of the wreckage of the past out of my life and allowed me to grow along spiritual lines.