12/08/2025
Learning to Trust Myself Again: The Real Meaning of Self-Reliance in Long-Term Recovery
On Saturday, I picked up my 18-year chip. Eighteen years. Nearly two decades of recovery, rebuilding, and re-learning what it means to live in my own skin. The topic at the meeting was Steps 3, 7, and 11—surrender, humility, conscious contact with God as we understand God. And woven through the room was a familiar refrain I’ve heard for years in the 12-step world:
“Self-reliance is dangerous. Trusting yourself isn’t safe. You must rely on others.”
I understand where this comes from. In early recovery, I needed that message. My internal compass was shattered. I didn’t know what was healthy and what was destructive. I was tangled in codependent patterns, survival strategies, and the fallout of toxic relationships. Relying on others—healthy others—was a lifeline.
But here’s what I’ve come to understand over the last five months, especially through the work I’ve been doing with my two current therapists:
Self-reliance isn’t the enemy.
Broken self-reliance is.
When we say, “Don’t trust yourself,” what we’re really addressing is the early recovery self—the dysregulated parts, the wounded protectors, the impulses that come from trauma rather than truth. That version of us is not a reliable navigator. But we don’t stay that version forever.
Long-term recovery demands a new conversation.
If I’m still outsourcing every decision, every bit of hope, faith, grounding, and soothing to people outside of me…
If I still believe I’m fundamentally unsafe in my own hands…
If I still look outward for every answer…
Then I haven’t actually grown. I’ve just substituted one dependency for another.
True psychological maturation—and true spiritual development—requires that we slowly, gently, intentionally cultivate the capacity to trust the Self that is emerging inside us.
IFS calls this the Core Self.
It is the part of us that carries:
Calm
Clarity
Curiosity
Compassion
Confidence
Courage
Creativity
Connectedness
These aren’t skills we borrow from the outside world.
These are capacities that already live inside us, waiting to be uncovered.
And the more connected we become to this internal source of wisdom, the healthier our relationships become externally. Paradoxically, learning to rely on ourselves is what makes us safe to rely on others.
Psychodynamically, this is individuation.
It’s the slow process of moving out of emotional fusion, dependency, or authority-based living, and into a sturdy internal world where we can think, feel, choose, and act from a grounded place.
Eighteen years in, what I know is this:
Self-reliance without support is dangerous.
Support without self-reliance is disabling.
The goal is integration.
The goal is maturity.
The goal is conscious contact with a Higher Power that strengthens, not replaces, our inner world.
My therapists now encourage self-reliance—not as rebellion, but as growth.
I no longer need to ask the world, “Am I okay?”
I’m learning to ask myself.
And when I deepen my contact with God as I understand God, the message is never, “Outsource your life.”
It’s always:
“Partner with Me—and with yourself.”
So today’s reflection is this:
Recovery doesn’t end at abstinence.
Healing doesn’t end at surrender.
Spirituality doesn’t end at reliance on God.
The real transformation begins when you learn to trust the Self you’ve spent years rebuilding.
May we rely on others when needed, rely on God for guidance,
and finally—beautifully—learn to rely on the person we are becoming.
by: Dr. Kimberly S. Benson LMHC
