“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
— Nelson Mandela
I’m writing this week’s post on the Fourth of July. Invitations to parties and potlucks have come in, and there are plenty of events happening around me. But I’ve chosen to stay home—away from environments where alcohol will be present. Two honest thoughts guided that choice: first, would I be susceptible to the old whisper of “just a little, you can handle it now”? And second, would I feel left out or unsettled watching others drink? I even avoided grocery shopping this weekend to sidestep the crowds stocking up for celebrations. It simply felt wiser.
After last week’s stressful but successful moving trip—and my recognition that old patterns didn’t take hold—I’ve found myself thinking about trust. Primarily, self-trust. My long history with alcohol and relapse feels both distant and painfully recent. With only about six months of uninterrupted sobriety, I can’t yet claim full trust in myself in all situations. My past is riddled with “I can handle it” and “forget it” moments that led to relapse and hurt the people I love. Shame and questions about my integrity followed.
This lack of self-trust naturally leads to questions about how much others can trust me. I’ve made promises, felt the strength of the forgiveness offered to me, then stumbled again into another binge—selfishly and carelessly. I’ve chosen numbing over relationships, over responsibilities, over people who cared for me. I’ve injured trust many times.
So how can I expect trust—from myself or from others?
With more reflection, I realized something deeper: I don’t fully trust others either. Old experiences, especially childhood trauma, have left a long shadow. And like many people, I’ve carried the human tendency toward “negativity bias”—giving more weight to painful experiences than positive ones. It’s a survival instinct at its core, but taken too far, it locks a person into a life lived in fear.
Fear. That’s the root:
• I fear hurting myself.
• I fear hurting others.
• I fear being hurt by others.
• I fear emotional pain, physical pain, and the vulnerability that closeness demands.
In the past, I chose the familiar pains—hangovers, regret, anxiety, shame—over the unknown pains of honesty, change, and trust. Alcohol dulled the fear but never solved it.
The real work now is to understand and address those fears. Not necessarily by dissecting every traumatic event from my past, but by using the “pause points” I’ve been practicing—moments of awareness that let me notice when fear is driving my reactions. With recognition comes the ability to respond differently.
This is a broad topic, and I expect to explore it more in future posts. I’ve now reached six months of sobriety with therapeutic support, and I’ll be taking these insights into counseling as well. The work will be difficult, but I believe the healing will be worth it.