Trust - Al-Anon Family Group

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

Trust

tommyecat · ~*Service Worker*~

For me the answer to your question is yes. When I came back into the program I had lost all hope in trust in my AH husbands word on any guarantees on drinking. After a traumatic brain injury, three month rehab for the injury, he stopped taking his seizure medication so that he could drink again. As it was explained to him he could endure more damage should he drink alcohol while on the meds. Well the meds went out the window fairly quickly. After the brain injury, he lost his sense of smell. Well I didn't. I did not have to give him the kiss and sniff welcome home honey because I could smell him five feet away. I would stupidly ask, have you been drinking to which he replied no.

Well, I was at my wits end. I realized that this disease was far to big for me. I had tried everything I knew to do to help put humpty dumpty back together yet return right back where we were. I recognized I was so powerless over alcohol, I had no where else to turn but back to alanon.

Trust for me began to return after I did my first fourth & fifth step with my sponsor. It centered mainly on the relationship with my husband. I was able to dump all of the garbage of the past and begin again. Little by little we began to build trust in one another.

Today I am only married one day at a time. I wake up each and every morning and make a decision to be married. It is up to me to adjust my attitudes, actions and inner being. If I believe there are no mistakes in Gods world, then every experience whether it is a person, place, or thing can be a teacher to me. My AH husband has been just that, one of the greatest teachers to me.

Although he has attended one AA meeting, he has no interest in the AA program. He continues to encourage and support me in my committment to the program. The program has shown me that if one person changes, the whole family can change. Today I recognize I have a wonderful, caring husband and father who happens to struggle with the disease of alcoholism. So rather than joining him in his disease, I think I will stick around, work my program and perhaps he may join me in recovery.

Best,

Tommye

-- Edited by tommyecat on Monday 27th of June 2011 09:06:36 PM

White Rabbit · ~*Service Worker*~

For me, the answer is also yes. It took quite a while, though - the relationship didn't get bad overnight, and it was not fixed overnight either. My AH lied plenty while he was drinking, and I did plenty of snooping/checking up to bust him. There were trust issues on BOTH sides, not just from me to him. When he first got sober, it was all I could do not to call him 20 times when he left the house (I'd find some reason to call him, but the real motive would be to check up and see where he was ... as if he wouldn't lie if he planned to drink, right? What kind of sense does this even make??). It was all I could do not to sniff his breath when he came in the door, or go dig through his car, or snoop on his computer. I was SICK, and my behavior had caused as much or more damage as his had. At least he was drunk when he did uncool stuff ... I was stark raving sober. :)

In any event, it took us months of working our own programs and me giving him room to choose relapse if that's what he wanted to do. It took me accepting that I was his partner - his equal, not his parent. It took a lot of work on my part to make living amends for my bad behavior. The time passed and I looked up one day and things were just so much better. I didn't wonder anymore where he was going or if he was drinking. In time, his actions showed that he was serious about recovery - as did mine.

Mlkiss75 · Veteran Member

Thank you for opening up this topic of conversation! I'm struggling with this issue also and I'm still in the distrusting, checking up stage as well which makes me feel lousy. I literally JUST checked my AH's pockets for a receipt or some other evidence 10 minutes ago. I want to stop caali g and checking and snooping and peeking. I want to embrace what white rabbit posts above - giving him room to relapse. I am MUCH better than I was, I've been doing fun things with people I enjoy spending time with and trying not to feel guilty about it when my AH cannot attend but I still find myself texting and calling way more than I am comfortable with. I even set up the family finder on our cell phones so that I know in what general vicinity he is in if I can't reach him!

So tomorrow, I'm going to try again to back off. I'm not going to ask him if he made it to an AA meeting and I'm not going to bug Jim about going to his intensive outpacing program. I'm going to let him worry about those things and I will worry about my things - work, getting to my meeting and taking care of myself!

Good luck to you - hang in there, I'm rooting for you!

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Pushka what helped me alot was learning about "qualified" trust which my sponsor taught me about not trusting my alcoholic/addict spouse for stuff she would not be able to come thru on. Things you could usually trust from a normie. When I learned that qualified trust I then when on to alterning my expectations and the consequence was that I didn't get thrown off track by the disease and our behaviors in it as often as I use to. When you live with the expectation of something usually being there when it happens it doesn't floor me as often or hurt as often or much and I also was not setting her up to fail either like before I learned that modification. I also learned how to expect good stuff from her because there was good stuff from time to time. So with expectation modification if the crazies happened I wasn't floored and if the good stuff happened I was pleasantly pleased. (((hugs))) smile

hawaiilover · Senior Member

During my 36 yrs of marriage to my AH, I have had trust issues more than I am willing to admit. I did not have to look for clues or anything. He told on himself. He was too inconsistent with his stories about various things. I concluded that the lies and betrayal are part of the disease and can't control that. I believe his actions more than his words. Thanks for the topic.

Hawaii

Kristi136188 · Veteran Member

My husband told many lies while he was drinking and before he was drinking heavily. It's hard to really say if his lies spawned his drinking or if his drinking spawned the lies. I think that I believe that the lies spawned the drinking, but then again it could be part of me that is still in denial. Once the truth was out and he stopped drinking (he's been recovering for a year now) we were able to work on our marriage. He did attend AA for a while and decided to attend a different program, that helped him. His lies included cheating. So we had alot of stuff to work on. We attended marriage counseling and we did A LOT of talking. He had to accept that there was nothing he could do to just "fix" it. It had to take time. He still sometimes tries to find JUST the right thing to say to make my insecurities fade. Even to this day I do worry about him relapsing, but like you said "it's his recovery." I even needed to start seeing a counselor on my own. She said the best thing to me "if he's going to cheat or drink again, there isn't anything that you're going to be able to do. if it's going to happen it's going to happen." So i've started to adapt that to my life. If it's going to happen it's going to happen and I'll have to live through it and figure out what to do despite it. Our relationship really came back when my mom passed away. Sounds weird I know. I saw a side of him that showed how much he cares. Nobody could fake their way through the emotions. He cried with me and my family, he stayed up all night to hold me while I cried, he really functioned for me. He took care of my life so that I could just be there as my mom passed away. What person would go through all that if they didn't care. Now is trust 100% there? No, but at least I feel that we started to actually base our relationship on something other than his lies. There were TONS of lies besides the cheating that came out when he hit rock bottom. It really shook me to my core. Essentially we started over and built our relationship on something solid. We built it on the fact that we love and care for each other. Isn't that how every relationship starts, for the most part?

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

I love what everyone has shared, thank you so much. This will give me much to think about and turn over to my HP. I do live by the are you going to believe what I tell you or what you see motto because the lying has been so bizzaro. I would be out of control there is no question in my mind, if I continued to believe what he told me only because none of his stories match. As odd as this will sound, I actually feel better because he does lie to everyone. Even more ironic he is terrible at it, I've known good liars in my lifetime this guy is so not one of them. I've often wondered if he wants to be caught or he honestly hopes I'm that stupid. At least on that level I'm grateful. It draws the point home to me that it's not me, it's not about me, he does this to everyone! It is the addiction. Probably the saddest thing is he thinks I believe him because I don't confront him about the lies I know about I allow them to ride, especially if it's just not that important. Obviously it's important to him and in some weird way I'm ok with that. I don't know why .. go figure. The trust is going to be a life long thing for me because over the last 6 years the trust has been eroding in our relationship. Each incident it got to be more and more corrosive. Before that if someone asked me if I trusted my husband I would not have blinked before answering, now I blink more than once probably more than twice.

Snooping, I have done, I have had about 3 days where it consumed me and I felt so awful I had to stop. I still do over specific things. I've talked about the DUI (at the moment it is my obsessions, this is on my list of things to let go of .. lol, it would be so simple, ... resolve it so I can move on .. lol.) we are currently dealing with and there is no communication at all about it. It angers me that the kids and I are collateral damage so his DUI on his record, I can live with that, knowing how it is resolved 10 moths and counting we wait, I have a right to know because this will affect us financially over the next 7 - 10 years. I know I won't believe what he tells me so why set him up? The snooping does it's share of damage, and that is a good reminder for me.

In rereading my post I can see for me the trust and the lying go hand and hand. I started with trust and am talking about lying. I thank all of you for your honest shares it means a lot to me and I will be revisiting these posts to remind myself that there is hope after the lies, and there can be trust after them as well. My greatest hope would be that my husband finds true sobriety and we live our lives in a true relationship. Right now in this moment I can only work to make myself whole emotionally, spiritually and mentally and work my trust issues out in all of my relationships, especially with God.

youfoundme · ~*Service Worker*~

I am back and forth over this. One day I do great with trusting my HP and the next I get all mixed up and start snooping, checking for receipts, smelling breath, looking for trouble basically. Thats the day I am back at step 1. I am powerless over other people. I haven't gotten to a meeting in over a week. I feel totally out of it now, so I need to get in contact with my Alanon friends and get back to some meetings. I feel myself slipping back into old junk... take care of you!

Kristi136188 · Veteran Member

When my husband and I went to marriage counseling one of my biggest reasons for doing it was because I needed a safe place to be able to confront him about anything I was concerned about as far as fearful of lying. He knew that it was part of rebuilding the trust was the fact that from time to time I would call him out on things I didn't believe. Since he lied to me pretty much about who he was as a person. I'm soooo glad that you are able to at peace with the fact that your AH lies to you and others. It is a part of the disease. For me, I take it too personally. I know I shouldn't, but I do. I feel that if/when he lies to me that he is pretty much calling me stupid to my face. The problem with my AH is that he's VERY good at lying. I do still check his phone and text messages from time to time. I know it's wrong. I guess for me, knowing the truth was the biggest part of everything. "If you don't love me just tell me and we can both move on, If you're finding yourself wanting to be with someone else, just tell me and then you can go about your way." I just don't want to EVER be hurt like i was when i found out the truth. I was literally the last one to know and as his wife i felt i deserved to be the first person to know.

glad lee · ~*Service Worker*~

I have been thinking about this topic for hours. On my way to work, I saw something I consider to be a major demonstration of trust... a woman walking on the sidewalk along a very busy, four-lane street in rush hour traffic.... with her Guide Dog leading her, she was blind.... I soo identified with the expression on her face.... blind faith.

And I thought of my relationship with my Higher power.... the only trustworthy One.

In recovery, I learned that I cannot always trust myself... I can twist reality around so much, it's not funny. I can justify, rationalize and defend my crazy thinking .... and create an entire fantasy. I lie to myself, and I don't even know I'm doing it....

A major reason I thought I had to get out of my 26-year marriage was because I felt my husband had "deceived" me. I realized later, of course, that I had deceived myself.... very very early in the relationship, the day I met him actually... back then, I never would have made friends like him since I did not make friends with people who did drugs. He had a large reputation for doing so... but everyone loved him, he was sooo popular in my small town, having moved there from Chicago. I believed I was the luckiest girl in the world to be on his arm. I completely deceived myself, totally lost myself when I met him. My dis-ease was alive and well long before I met him. I chose to marry a drug addict and then I resented him for acting like one.

This morning I also thought of the trust I put in the other drivers I share the road with, my well-being is at stake. I want to trust them when I go through an intersection, I want to trust them to stay in their lane. Then I remembered.... sheesh, I can't always be trusted....

last year, just after moving back to my home state, I was at an intersection, to turn left, and I ended up turning left in front of a car... totaling his car and causing $12K worth of damage to my own. I knew full well it happened because my brain was soooo focused on someone I was having a resentment with, I was not focused on my driving. Praise to my Higher power, no one was injured.

When I think of trust, I think of these things. And I feel grateful for all the tools of this program, especially the tool of sponsorship... all of which help me with my "thinking problem." I, too, am guilty of lying and of being untrustworthy, but every day, I am doing the best I can do. I am committed to walking this spiritual journey... and growing a relationship with a power greater than myself, greater than alcoholism, greater than all my fears.... It's not all about me and my fears. It's about faith. And allowing HP to work through me. I get to wake up every day and say, "I'm all yours" lol

I am sitting here in gratitude, thank you so much for the post.

-- Edited by glad lee on Tuesday 28th of June 2011 01:13:45 PM

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

hi, really what is trust? What does it mean to you?

I am trustworthy, bu life can happen, out of my control and completely mess up my total plan to have done something I promised.

Honestly I could always trust my Mother. She was so moral and stuck to her word. Same as the gal who adopted me after Mother died.

When Mother got breast cancer that is how I knew how sick she was. She would not do what she said, she forgot. NOT her fault. But I no longer trusted her.

Other people I don't trust or distrust. It seems like a crazy thing to do to trust people. Its not a judgement either. It is more a choice of my own. I just love people.

Now trusting an A to me is inconceibable.Trusting someone with brain cancer is too.

The symptoms of being A are ones to me that of course they cannot be trusted. They do what is the nature of the beast.

I trust my dogs with my life.But leave their raw chicken drumsticks where they can reach them...un nooooo that is the nature of the beast.

An A honestly believes their lies. It's a form of denial. They can be laying on the floor drunk not able to get up, but will look into your eyes and say I have not been drinking. and they believe it. It how their brains work.

Even a sober on program A can lie and believe themself.

trust....I trust myself. I trust my Hp. I trust Jesus and Angels of the creator and that is it.

To me it is not something that makes sense to trust imperfect humans and animals.

Does not mean I won't believe they do their best, and love them. I mean I love them for imperfections too. I hope they love me the same.

Faith yes. I have faith that my A will do their very best in their recovery, but if they lie, or mess up, it does not change my faith or love for them.

hugs,debilyn who trusts everyone and everything to do what their nature is

White Rabbit · ~*Service Worker*~

Deb, I love the analogy about the dogs and the chicken drumsticks. TOTALLY makes sense. Sure, you love the dogs and you know they love you and you trust them with your life. If you leave the drumsticks on the ground and tell the dogs not to eat them, and then leave the room and they eat them anyway, the behavior wasn't directed AT you. They ate drumsticks because they're dogs. That's what dogs do.

Thanks for that - really helps.

stephaniej · Senior Member

My answer to this is...sort of. Bear in mind that my AH is not sober, but also not drinking to excess every night. We are on, what I am assuming will turn out to be, the part-way point to his rock bottom. I presume his drinking will continue to escalate before he quits again (if ever).

I trust my AH in certain ways with certain things. What I have *really* come to realize over the past year is that by and large, the "thing" that's doing the lying is the disease, not the man. This point was really driven home to me last winter, when I realized he was lying about incredibly stupid things. I looked at the lie, and I thought to myself "he will lie or he won't lie. I have set my boundaries and if I ever have knowledge that he has crossed them, I will take appropriate action. In the meantime, I am not going to obsess over whether he is lying. I will not let his lies ruin my day/week/life/whatever, just like I won't let his drinking ruin me."

At this point, I trust him to go to work and do his job, to provide proper care for our son, and to not cheat on me. While I am always maintaining an awareness of any change in circumstances that should cause me NOT to trust him with these things, I no longer obsess. I no longer spend hours combing through phone records and snooping on his cell phone. I am trusting my HP to help me find the right path for ME.

I do believe trust can be rebuilt over time. I also believe that we, as people who love alcoholics, need to always be aware that other people can violate our trust at any time. Not that I think we should all be bitter and skeptical and suspicious; just that we should avoid the co-dependent trait of placing our happiness at the feet of other people, and giving those people the power to determine whether we have a good day, or a bad day. I suppose this boils down to try to forgive, but never forget. Strive to live a life of joy and love, but don't put those blinders on and always, always remember that the only person responsible for your happiness is yourself.

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

stephaniej wrote:
Not that I think we should all be bitter and skeptical and suspicious; just that we should avoid the co-dependent trait of placing our happiness at the feet of other people, and giving those people the power to determine whether we have a good day, or a bad day. I suppose this boils down to try to forgive, but never forget. Strive to live a life of joy and love, but don't put those blinders on and always, always remember that the only person responsible for your happiness is yourself.

Stephanie, I struggle with the issue of forgiving and not forgetting. I have been reflecting a lot about what jerry said and having a "qualified" trust. I don't know maybe I have to figure out what I mean by trust. The lying is going to happen that's been going on for years now and if I am really honest with myself that was going on when we were dating. I do trust my husband to go to work and come home. I trust my husband to get specific things done around the house. Those things I can count on. Do I believe him when he says something 99.9% I don't. It depends on what it is as well.

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