The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
The word I pulled out of my god box today was FEAR.
I was raised in a violent alcoholic household. My father was abusive to my mother on numerous occassions. She would always leave him when things got too bad, scoop all us children up and off we'd go to the old Belmont Hotel down by the waterfront (cheap place, never asked any questions), or sometimes we'd stay at my Aunt Pearl's place. She lived in the country. I hated the smell of the fresh country air but it was always so peaceful and serene there. And she always had cookies or cupcakes.
Eventually, though, he'd start calling or showing up with flowers and begging her to come back. Mom would always go back. And things would be good for a few months, and then the madness would start again and we'd be back at the Belmont. But we knew it was only temporary because we knew she'd always go back. I didn't understand it.
Later in life, I found myself in my own unhealthy alcoholic relationship. I left many times but I always went back. I didn't know why I always went back.
Until one day I was watching a documentary about a bengal tiger raised in captivity. Some do-gooder environmental agency stepped in and decided that the tiger should be returned to the wild, where it belonged. So they brought the tiger to africa or someplace and they set it free. The tiger ran off into the jungle. Everyone cheered. That night, the tiger came back and went to sleep in its cage.
The scientists explained it all very matter-of-factly. They said that an animal raised in captivity often returns to its cage because the fear of what it doesn't understand - the real world - is greater than the fear of what it does understand - the cage.
I understand now.
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Not all my days are priceless, but none of them are worthless, anymore.
I can identify. Hope you are finding ways to get along outside the cage. Have my own and know the comfort of the familiar even when the familiar is violent and ugly. It isn't ALWAYS that way, but the fact that you never know exactly when it will be is always with you, even in the peaceful moments.
So sometimes even when I'm having a peaceful moment, I'm looking for the proverbial other shoe to drop. It took a very long time for me to realize I was seeking that feeling...because it IS a feeling that I was comfortable with. Yet when it happens (anger/insult/emotional trauma) I remember why I hated it and wanted to live a different way. Tonight something like that happened because I said something that brought a predictable response from a person I knew I should stay away from. I want to blame him, but my gut was telling me to go ahead and get back in the cage. Luckily, I am not involved deeply with this person and it's easy enough to see what I did, and what I can do to make it stop.
But I do understand that sometimes you can miss the cage.
I love this share and can relate to this on so many levels. I have escaped my cage, but spend a lot of time missing the comfortable confines and have crawled back in a few times since. I am free and love owning my power and every day I venture a bit further into the unknown jungle. Soon I can feel I wont even look back anymore and all will be a vague memory of a past life. I love the analogy!
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Sending you love and support on your journey always! BreakingFree
Al-Anon/Alateen Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 800-344-2666
" Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."
"Serenity is when your body and mind are in the same place."
I can so relate to your awareness. I keep BEGGING to let me come back home because I am 56 and can't find a job. I have to work because I like to eat. HaHa. Any way my fear keeps me from trusting our HP to protect and provide my NEEDS and not my WANTS. I basically am just once again doing it MY way. Message at f2f tonight was let go and let god. I am learning to do it one little tiny step at a time. I choose to keep working the program. I look forward to discovering Gods plan for me. :)
Aloha Wolfie...great share and metaphor on fear. Fear use to support me in doing risky risky things and I garndered lots and lots of negative crazy consequences because of it and my opposition to doing anything that required thinking and planning a head of time and then exercising the courage to follow thru. That all ended when I made the open decision to staying with recovery. I made that decision 16 years after I first came in. Doesn't matter how long it took; just that it took at all.
I learned about fear in the program and was given an acronym for it that helped me easily understand fear and me. False Evidence Appearing Real...the me part is that my brain dreams up the things which it fears. Those things are not real things just thought things...what if...things and still just thoughts and thought picture. My brain directs horror pictures!!
I'm grateful for the program because going back to the cage for me was just as unacceptable...the "doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results" and the "sick and tired of being sick and tired" were killing me more surely than the unknown jungle so then came trust...Al-Anon and a power greater than Myself/brain/fear. Now I can roam around out here free and unafraid and I can go back and sit in the old cage and not feel afraid. There never was a lock on the cage door and I can come and go at anytime without fear.
There is a documentary about two guys that raised a lion outside of captivity (they were circus trainers) and who released it to the jungle. The lion's name was Christian I believe and they left it there and then years later went back to the same spot and the lion reappeared and they rejoined the relationship and then they all left until they came back again and then the lion reappeared and then it's mate also and they rejoined the old relationship and a new relationship and before they left again two cubs came out of the jungle and joined in the relationship and fear was no where in sight.
