Most of us would have had nowhere else to go if we could not have trusted recovery groups and members.
As a matter of fact many of us don't trust people. I'm as guilty of it as the next person. In my 37 year career in law enforcement people lied to me on a daily basis. Even in retirement people still lie to me. In recovery people constantly lie.
Who do and can you trust? Someone somewhere will always have an ulterior motive.
However trusting people is a risk. Human beings are notoriously forgetful, unreliable, and imperfect. Most of us come from backgrounds where betrayal and insensitivity among friends were common occurrences. Even our most reliable friends weren't very reliable. By the time we arrive at the doors of recovery, most of us have hundreds of experiences bearing out our conviction that people are untrustworthy. Yet our recovery demands that we trust people. We are faced with this dilemma: People are not always trustworthy, yet we must trust them. How do we do that, given the evidence of our pasts?
First, we remind ourselves that the rules of active alcoholism don't apply in recovery. Most of our fellow members are doing their level best to live by the spiritual principles we learn in the program. Second, we remind ourselves that we aren't 100% reliable, either. We will surely disappoint someone in our lives, no matter how hard we try not to. Third, and most importantly, we realize that we need to trust our fellow members in recovery. Our lives are at stake, and the only way we can stay clean is to trust these well-intentioned folks who, admittedly, aren't perfect.
Just for Today: I will trust my fellow members. Though certainly not perfect, they are my best hope.