While in active addiction, there were few people in our lives whom we trusted. Because our lives were organized around our need to use, we judged the value of our relationships based on how useful others were to us. When others failed to do what we wanted, we became angry and resentful at them. This fostered in us a general distrust of other people and encouraged us to shun people in general, preferring instead to isolate ourselves. In isolation, we felt safe. There seemed to us little point in being around other people, since these people always failed us.