The Parable Story: When the Solution Becomes the Problem
And what to do when you recognize it
Once upon a time, there was a small village at the edge of a river. The people there were good, and life in the village was good. One day, a villager noticed a baby floating down the river. The villager quickly swam out to save the baby from drowning. The next day, this same villager noticed two babies in the river. He called for help, and both babies were rescued from the swift waters. The following day, four babies were found in the turbulent current. And then eight, then more, and still more!
All villagers were impacted by the stressful demands of rescuing babies from the river. Most villagers did their best to organize themselves quickly. They set up watchtowers and trained teams of swimmers to navigate the swift waters and rescue babies. Rescue squads were soon working 24 hours a day. But each day, the number of helpless babies floating down the river increased.
Some villagers avoided the chaos but supported those helping on the front line. Some villagers were uncomfortable and wandered away from the chaos. Some stood by, unsure about what to do. Life in the village changed from being calm and peaceful to being anxious and stressful.
The rescue squads were soon saving many children each day. While not all the babies could be saved, the villagers felt they were doing well to save as many as they could each day. Saving babies took priority over their past daily structure and routine.
The village elder blessed them in their good work.
On the downside, the individuals saving babies became rigid in their beliefs. They felt that they had no other choice. To sleep, they attempted to push away other thoughts, and only slipped out of their resolve to save the babies when they themselves became totally exhausted. They became judgmental of other villagers who were not actively saving babies.
Although some of the villagers bonded around the common goal of saving babies, and the resulting trauma, some became very argumentative. Personal relationships in the village suffered. Life in the village continued on this basis.
Village life became stressful, chaotic, and narrowly focused on saving babies. The village elder assigned people specific tasks focused on saving babies: hunting more game for food, preparing and cooking it, and setting up tents as makeshift nurseries to feed and care for the surviving babies. Each person did their best. Over and over and over.
Each day, there were more and more babies. Villagers increased their pace. They grew more and more exhausted.
One day, however, someone raised the question, “Where are all these babies coming from? Someone must be responsible for sending these babies to die in this river. Let’s organize a team to head upstream to find out who’s throwing all of these babies into the river!” Others disagreed, “No! We need everyone here working. This problem will get better eventually. It has to.”
This parable is one perspective of how addiction in the family has “trained” us to think about solutions. Would you agree?
Is it time we rethink the problem so that we can rethink the solution?
We at The Family Recovery Solution (TFRS) have a book on the verge of launch that helps you rethink the problem and become empowered to apply new solutions. This is a transformative process for that family member, the one who has not given up yet, despite everything else having failed. Not for the faint of HEART.