I’d question the premises of the question.
Trust does not ‘go’. It has no will. What is probably meant
is, ‘I do not trust X [name of person] not to do Y [some activity].’
Trust is not a binary button: it’s a composite of a thousand
individual trusts. I can trust someone not to bring back an elephant to the
house but I can’t trust them to stay sober. I can trust someone not to attack
me physically but I can’t trust them not to attack me verbally. With each
individual trust, there is a scale. Someone might be 1% likely to be grumpy and
ornery or 80% likely to be grumpy and ornery. The button is not an on–off
button.
Unqualified trust is soft-mindedness. No one can be trusted
to act perfectly at all times.
In a sense, I do not trust anyone. Why? Everyone has a
degree of unpredictability.
Fortunately, trust is not necessary. What is necessary is a
fair assessment of how people actually behave and a set of reasonable
assumptions about how they might behave in the future.
How might they behave in the future? Look at how they
behaved in the past. That’s what they’ll do in the future. If they’re healthy,
they’ll improve over time. If they’re not, they’ll deteriorate, so buckle up.
The second premise: that ‘repairing things’ is desirable and
possible.
There are no things.
There is them and there is me.
I can adjust my own beliefs, thinking, and behaviour.
I leave theirs to them.
I can interact healthily with someone who is ill, but I
cannot cause them to believe, think, and act healthily.
The effective, efficient, and harmonious functioning of the
household ‘business’ is achievable only if everyone is well. If people are ill,
it’ll be a mess, and the best I can do is work around the mess and build my own
life.
The insanity I’m dealing with in Al-Anon is the insanity of
thinking that I can fix, change, or control others. I can’t.
If they’re ill (and not in a highly effective recovery process), I have two options. Put up with it or leave. There are no other options on the table.