Barbed Wire and Dealing with Addictions

Identifying and Solving Addictions

All children are surrounded by addictions that can injure them severely, and most of them are already involved in those behaviors.

What is the solution to addictions and the pain always associated with them? This is an important question, because the present “cure rate” for addictions of all kinds—alcohol, drugs, anger, controlling, porn, and many more, even with in-patient treatment—is horrible, probably around 5% long term.

Including the emotional addictions to anger, being right, controlling, and other emotional defenses, the incidence of addictions is astonishingly high—almost certainly greater than 95%.

Why such a poor cure rate? For the same reason that the cure rate for any disease is poor if we make the wrong diagnosis. If someone is dying from heart disease, and we diagnose a cold instead, the prognosis is much worse for the patient.

Addictions—which include all unloving behaviors that we can’t easily abandon—flourish because we’re not addressing the root CAUSE of addictions. We’re not making the correct diagnosis. We’re only treating the symptoms.

The Price of Breaking the Laws of Happiness

I once watched a movie where a cowboy was “riding the fence line,” which meant that he rode his horse along the miles of barbed wire fencing that enclosed the enormous pastures where the cattle lived, wandered about, and grazed.

He came across a calf, bawling loudly and struggling in the ever-tightening and mortally wounding grasp of a tangle of barbed wire. The cowboy worked hard to free the calf but finally accepted that continuing the struggle would end up only in more pain before the inevitable death of the animal. He pulled his pistol and mercifully killed the calf.

Why have a fence at all? Why not let the cattle just go where they please? Because the fence offers a number of advantages, all of which are grounded in safety:

1. Inside the boundaries of the fence, cattle know where they are, day and night. They don’t accidentally wander at night and fall of a cliff, for example, because the fence would exclude such a place.
2. The cattle won’t wander off and be killed by neighbors or others who might encounter a single animal and fancy some fresh sirloin over a crackling fire.
3. They’re less likely to be stolen when the boundaries of the owner are clearly marked.
4. In the winter, the cattle’s location is better known than if they wander the countryside, and supplemental hay and other foods can be brought in when the grass has died or is covered by snow.

Our Children Need Fences

Fences are intended to protect cattle from harm, not to hold them captive and miserable. Similarly, PARENTS are not intended to be restrictions and inconveniences for children.

Parents provide a place—like a fenced pasture—where loving and teaching can greatly enhance not just the survival but the joy of the children.

Few parents understand their roles as guardians riding the fence line. Many children attempt to crawl through the fence, and find themselves tangled up in the confusion and pain of the world, as did the calf who died for his efforts.

These unloving, harmful behaviors found outside the fence are addictions, which are simply anything that creates some temporary pleasure—or reduction of pain—but which becomes difficult to quit and even dangerous.

The environments and activities outside the protection of the fence can be very enticing, even seductive. Fences almost invite children to climb over and see what’s on the other side. But it is our responsibility—our privilege—to take care of these precious children.

We teach them how to avoid the dangers of any choice outside the protective and enriching activities of feeling loved, being loving, and being responsible. We help them find and recognize the happiness that comes from following the laws that govern that condition. 

We also provide enough fun and happiness within the fence that their desire to leave is minimized. In the process we save their lives. The alternative—as illustrated by the calf in the barbed wire—is unthinkable.