Does anyone have any thoughts or advice on how you learn to trust yourself again? I’m at 135 days sober and I think it’s maybe normal to still have thoughts or cravings to drink, but I know how impulsive I am and I have a hard time believing in my own conviction, or something. I don’t want to drink. I still romanticize it sometimes anyways. And I’m still scared very often that I’ll act out of sync with my own value of sobriety.
12 Likes
This is natural you are still in early sobriety but over time you will become more confident in your sobriety just keep putting the work in and add to your toolbox
8 Likes
I went for so many years regretting doing my addiction, then doing it, then regretting it, and so on and so on, forever. I got to a point where I gave up on trust. I was existing, and not living. For me, existing had nothing to do with trust. It was just existing.
I feel different now. For me now I have a daily routine of simple daily tasks (I have a checklist), created with my sponsor over time since I started with him, and I do the tasks. Some days I miss a few tasks but I do most of them every day.
Trust, for me, right now, is doing those tasks to help me stay sober. I trust that if I do those tasks, I will be ok. It is a simple but powerful change for me, that started when I was done. I was done and I wanted to be done, and now I’m doing things to grow and learn new ways of living, and I’m feeling a growing trust in the process, as a result of that.
4 Likes
It comes the longer your sober nothing happens in recovery overnight for me i had to gain trust from others who i had hurt then i began to trust my decisions wish you well
9 Likes
So other people trusted you again before you could trust yourself?
Thank you @Conor80
1 Like
So you built trust with yourself by creating healthy habits. This is very valuable, thanks @Matt
Can i ask how you went about formulating that list of healthy sober habits? Maybe i need something like that
3 Likes
I created it directly based on advice from my sponsor. I leave a voicemail for my sponsor every day, and we have a phone call once a week on Tuesday mornings. Based on his listening and my shares, he has given me advice about what simple tasks to incorporate into my daily routine. As I have been doing those tasks, I have noticed they have reinforced my sobriety, and built confidence.
1 Like
Thank you for sharing that. That’s honestly something i didnt think of. I guess i betrayed myself as much as anyone with my addiction, so aside from time, i probably need to show myself consistently better decisions to have that trust again. I appreciate ya.
3 Likes
I think its absolutely normal for us to not trust ourselves initally. If ur anything like me, i would make promises to myself to never use again, only to find a pipe or bottle in my hand the next day. The biggest thing for me in building trust with myself, was to keep my word to myself.
Setting a routine that i followed daily and kept to, was crucially important. Incorporating recovery related tasks into that routine helped me to keep that promise to myself to not drink or use again. Over time i began to build that trust with myself. The longer i stayed clean, the more i trusted my abilities to stay clean. If that makes sense 
4 Likes
Congratulations on your 135 Madds, that is pretty fabulous. 
I think the romanticizing is something to look at. For me, it took fully understanding the reality of my drinking versus the fantasy. The fantasy was that drinking made me funny, lessened my anxiety, was ‘a good time’, made me sociable, was something I could control (“I’ll just have 2 drinks tonight”), made sex fun, and was just plain fun. The reality was way different. I was anxious, hungover, felt like shit, embarrassed myself continuously, let myself and others down constantly, was a liar and a thief, was dangerous in a vehicle, did incredibly stupid, illegal stuff and a ton more. For me, I needed to keep a list of all the things that sobriety brought me to remind myself over and over that my drinking wasn’t going to magically become manageable.
Once I was able to really understand what my drinking brought me, I was qble to be honest and trust myself more.
Like the others have said, it takes time. But we can and do heal and build back trust. Having healthy habits and being truthful with myself has been key.
5 Likes
That makes a lot of sense, thank you @SassyRocks
Maybe i need to get deep with my journal and find the places I’m subconsciously fantasizing about alcohol and tear that away from what i know is the truth.
2 Likes
Ahh so time will help. That’s an answer that makes a lot of sense the way you lay it out even though it’s a frustrating one. It’s easy to get impatient you know? Thank you 
2 Likes
Once I completed my 10th step I started to trust myself again. The 10th step promises did come true for me. I was around 14-15 months sober at this point.
3 Likes
When your start to romanticise, get a pen and paper, and physically write down the reasons why you had to stop drinking.
2 Likes
Yea i had no Confidence in my life but when people around me gave me the ability to be helpful and trusted me then i started to realise i could trust myself also as Derek says the program gave me the tools
Sorry replying to Madds
1 Like
This is a good idea. Thank you, I’ll try writing it down.
Thank you so much