TRUST

Trust


In the context of the healing of the family during the throes of alcoholic mayhem and then the very precarious sobriety to follow, today's discussion talked about how families tend to recover from the trials of the alcoholic member. And it is or should be a given that when a family is involved with an alcoholic, the family itself should be considered a casualty of the disease as well as the alcoholic himself. Spouses have lived through raging behaviors of blackouts, physical abuse, absenteeism, emotional as well as physical, and infidelity both sexual and economic.

Trust is at an all time low and regaining trust is a journey not all marriages and families are able to recoup. And this happens because the depths that the alcoholic has sunk to and dragged the others in the family through can only be imagined; and the degree of sober familial forbearance can only be calculated based on the tolerance, love and faith and often sheer folly of the sober spouse.

And the dilemma that the alcoholic usually finds himself in is that after a brief time of sobriety (and by brief I mean by the calculation of the sober family members although this may seem an eternity to the alcoholic) he has a certain level of expectation of acceptance for his efforts in not drinking. He feels he should be acknowledged as being sober. And these feelings are expressed regardless of whether he is truly sober or not.

Because we know that being sober is a far cry from not drinking. We know that people may abstained from drinking for years but that they are anything but sober. For sobriety is a way of behaving and living not just what one ingests. True, the ingestion of inebriating substances prevents sober thinking and behavior, but the absence of drinking by itself does not promote sober thought and living.

In the Big Book chapter 'The Family Afterward' it cautions the newly not drinking drunk that getting the family back together is a work in progress. That work is haunted at every turn by the demons of the behavior of the drunk and the history of the family battles that came along with that history. As indicated above and as is related in every AA’s story, all recovery involves retrieval of trust, dignity, faith, honesty and truth. All of which have been in meager supply during the ravages of the trial of the alcohol war.

So the Big Book advises the family to be patient with the recovering alcoholic. He is brittle, can easily be damaged and has only tentative experience early on with truth and honesty, faith and dignity. But this chapter likewise cautions the alcoholic not to take advantage of the equally disadvantaged family that has been beaten down by his alcoholism by his lying, cheating and unfaithful behavior. This will ultimately cause sobriety to fail. Honesty and dignity is something that one should practice with oneself too. Practicing these principles in all your affairs will make for a better understanding in the family, but acting superior, as if the family did not understand sobriety or higher powers or God does not promote a healthy stable family environment.

We are told by our sponsors not to beat ourselves up, not to live in the past and in fact 'abandon all hope of a better past'. It just isn't going to happen. Repeated recriminations for things that cannot be changed is silly and hurtful to self and ultimately self defeating. We cannot make the past better, only the future. We must accept our past for what it was and live with it hoping that we will not repeat it in the future.

I particularly recall, that I first realized that I could get sober when I finally acknowledged that I could not change the things that had happened to me. I could not wish away my regrets. I could not be another me. My circumstances could not be other than what they were. I could, however, accept my life from this day forward and not waste another minute regretting the past.

I could stop blaming myself and everyone around me for the me I did not know and thought I could have been. I could stop drinking about that past and perhaps with some time, maybe I could think straight. And when that happened, I would be able to contemplate what I would do in the future based on the honest principles of truth, faith and love.

That was a nice thought and had I acted on that earlier in my drinking career I do believe that it would have worked. I might have succeeded in keeping my marriage intact. We are taught in AA to learn to accept a lot of things and to accept the fact that we are wrong in many ways in our daily lives and own up to these wrongs is a lesson not easily learned. We must learn to live better and more moral lives. Because in this life we have to grow and just being sorry for our behavior doesn't always cut it; we have to start to live soberly, not just not drink. (Had I learned this earlier in my life I might have save a marriage!)

So as Alice said, it is not alright to shoot someone and say you’re sorry and call that progress in AA. You must actually decide first not to shoot that someone...acceptance that not shooting someone is a GOOD THING.

I had started off the meeting acknowledging the regret that I had not sobered early enough to save my marriage. Although I am actually really angry when I think of the depths to which others in the program have sunk I find it astonishing that I remain unable to salvage my marriage yet they have salvaged theirs. And I know that it may be fruitless to compare but for my own sanity I have to get this out because like Lear, I feel I need to rail against the elements.

Mark says that he drank, did dope and was unfaithful to his wife. He did this for years. And during this time he promised over and over to get sober and yet he continued to bang other women and use dope etc. So when he finally did get sober and he developed some credibility and salvaged his marriage he is at a point where he is wondering what percentage of trust he has salvaged in his marriage. And today he speculated that if trust were measured on a 1-10 scale he thought that he may have salvaged a 5. But when he was talking to his wife just the other day, the quality of her questions to him made him understand, a full two years after their reconciliation, that the best he may have achieved is a 2.

And then Ethan who was prepared to divorce just a month ago has announced that he and his wife have agreed to postpone that and continue their separation in the hope that they will eventually reintegrate in six months. And this is after five years of dope, vodka and whores and weekends in hotel rooms. And he is just on cloud nine as a result of this development.

But he said in announcing this, in the same breath that his wife agreed to this, she speculated that he still had a girlfriend in his apartment and that he was still doing drugs and alcohol. Now whether she truly believes that or not or just wants to keep him on notice that her trust fuse is shorter than disbelief itself, is not clear but what is clear is that he does not have her unencumbered sentiments in his corner.

So family reintegration is a challenge that goes on like walking on broken glass for years, if we are to believe Bob, who has 20 years now. And his wife still comes out with a zinger or two just to let him know that trust is a commodity that is continually bought with good works. Any slips and the whole purchase must be reordered.

We alcoholics are fond of saying that we lost our right to drink a long time ago. And I guess that along with that is having lost the right to be accepted at face value without any skeptical eye. For we have earned peoples' healthy skepticism, with good reason. We have disappointed so many for so long that there is no easy way to regain that trust. They have no reason to expect a fair shake from us so we should not expect that they give us a fair shake in return where the issue of trust is concerned. We accomplished that the old fashioned way...we lost it.


© res 1/19/11