[9th Engineer]

I hate to be sitting on the fence here, but I think the answer lies somewhere between Aliantha and bmw. People change, true, but we never leave our past behind. Change is a continual, gradual process. I think a good analogy would go something like this "If you put some water in a glass and accidently drop some dirt in it, how can you make the water clear again without pouring out the water? You can make the water clear by adding more and more clean water until you can't see the difference". The water would be everything that makes you who you are, you can't reset yourself and go back to square one. What you can do is live your life the way you want people to see you and in time your new self will outweigh your old self. I remember saying that you should act on what a person does, not what they say they will do. If someone is asking you to trust them to make major changes in their life, then give them time to prove it. It might take a few weeks, other changes need years to prove. Whether it's going sober, dropping abusive habits, whatever, only time can be trusted to show if a person is serious, not what they tell you.