Three Trusts

Alcoholism taught me that trust was dangerous. I trusted someone to stop drinking, and they didn't. I trusted myself to fix it, and I couldn't. By the time I reached Al-Anon, trust felt like a word for people who hadn't been lied to enough to know better.

Then recovery asked me to do the one thing I'd sworn off — trust again. Trust a room full of strangers. Trust a sponsor with my worst thoughts. Trust a Higher Power I wasn't sure was listening. The first three Steps are really just one invitation: let go of control and let something else hold you.

That terrified me. Letting go meant becoming vulnerable, and vulnerability was what got me hurt. But control hadn't kept me safe either — it had just kept me alone.

Trust came back slowly. Not through promises, but through small moments where I let go and didn't fall.

I can identify one area today where I'm holding on tightly and ask: what would it look like to trust — the group, my sponsor, or my Higher Power — with this, even a little?