Baby Lizards in Middle of Addictive Family

Have you ever wondered why when an apple detaches from its mother tree, it falls downward and doesn’t fly upward?  Someone named Newton had a theory on that principle.  Mangos do the same thing. When it is time for them to detach

from their mama tree they fall down in great abundance covering the ground below.  Actually when that drop off day occurs, all the villages and farms know that mangos are free for the taking!  Once mangos touch the ground, worms begin to grow inside them and they are no longer good for selling.
But what on earth can the natives do with so many mangos?  They do not have refrigerators!  But I did.  So I would go with my housekeeping helpers and we would gather all we could.  I would peel all of them and cut off the pulp into the wee hours of the night.  Then I would freeze the pulp to make mango popsicles. I had started a bolis (popsicles in thin long plastics bags with a knot on top) business selling them from my kitchen window.  I was saving up the money to run away with my baby. And I eventually did and that is another story.
Hubby #3 never provided furniture for the house.  He did win a blue fiber glass bed for our baby boy at the underground poker room (behind the coffee shop downtown).  Our own bed was borrowed.  All the interior doors had been detached and were leaning against each window facing the street in order to cover the fact that we had no drapes.  My American car was parked across the front yard for all to see that he had a Gringa wife.  The window to the kitchen was not permitted to have curtains so the public could see my modern kitchen devices, freezer and doublewide frig.  For him it was all about what the world saw. 
In Mexico we call that, lights on in public and dark at home.  So I had a good freezer and each mango harvest time my bolis menu had mango flavor on it.  And there were other flavors throughout the year: papaya, pineapple, lemon, prickly pear, guava and coconut. I even invented coffee and cream bolis for the policemen who would park in front of the house on the always hot nights to get their ‘pilon’ from me.  They needed coffee to stay awake but it was too hot for that.  So I made frozen coffee bolis as a ‘pilon’.  Pilon means something free we give to show appreciation.  The policemen watched the house and I invented cold caffeine for them.
Back to coconuts.  They were not expensive.  Expensive was paying to get them cut open.  I remember hubby #3 was seating under a palm tree one time getting some shade.  Now every Mexican knows not to ever park ones car under a palm tree because that results in a broken windshield. Yep.  A coconut dropped on his head. I heard it land!  The maids kept trying to tell me not to let him sleep.  He was very stunned and drowsy.  Despite his ‘raging’ we struggled to be near him and hold him up.  We needed to keep him annoyed and pestered, so he would stay awake.
So, there are 2 principles here.  Things drop down, not up. The further things fall the heavier they are. 
Now here is another dynamic law of nature and it really relates to addiction and lizard tails.  Plant a seed and reap a harvest.  It is even Biblical. Whatever type of seed a family plants, good/bad, generous/greedy, resentment/forgiving, addictive/self-disciplined:  that is the type of abundant garden that will produce within the family for many generations.
When a family member has been knocked on the head by an addiction coconut, he or she must get back up and keep moving. We in addiction recovery must not lay and rest on our laurel of medallions, keychains and rehab completion certificates.  “It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels.” Big Book, Into Action Page 85.
The battle is not over!!!  We need to stay aware of the younger family members around us.  Keep an eye on their tails. This is a family disease. Chances are the addiction monster has been active a long time in our family tree.  In some cases the monster enters through DNA and in other cases the beast is handed down by learned behavior. We have seen the different tails. We know that addiction is not only in a bottle, in a pill, in a chemical.  But addiction behavior is also in gambling, eating, spending, controlling, being a door matt and permitting oneself to be abused.  There is also bullying. 
You know last count some 4 years ago I was talking to the General Service Office in New York for a fellowship called Alcohol Anonymous. I called to get permission to use the 12 Steps in a new meeting type.  The lady on the phone told me that her last count of different organizations requesting that type of permission was 543.  They are all uniting and using the 12 Steps to freedom in order to conquer issues in life.  So there are a lot of addictions.  There are a lot of tails telling their tales about the family ISMs.  They bud out, spring out and take the shape of different obsessed activities. 
Keep an eye on the little ones.  We now have natural kids (offspring), blended family kids, foster kids and even neighbor kids, who choose not to be in their own homes.  Watch the budding of their baby lizard tails telling where they gravitate to tap into a potion or relief when in the midst of a fabricated or true rejection.  They may feel fabricated or true victimization.  The little kids will not run to a lollypop.   They will not run to a jump rope outside or take some chalk to draw hopscotch on cement.  They don’t do that anymore. 

They run to escape inside an ISM (I Sabotage Myself).
There are lots of heavy set kids out there wobbling from over eating ISM.  There are lots of kids out there with gaming and cell phone device ISM. 
My own son at 3 years old had blisters on his little thumbs!  Was he rejected?  Not intentionally, but yes, he was rejected.  I was not permitted to have the time I needed for my son. I had to cater night and day to a man with Rage ISM.  So my son was left out.  My son had an ISM.  And his higher power at that time that could relieve and comfort him was a video game with a little man jumping on bricks and knocking his head on a ceiling so that stars would pop out.
Within 24 hours after my son unwrapped that gift from his dad, he had blisters on his thumbs.  And what else?
Our house was next door to his kindergarten.  I was not allowed to get out.  It was to protect me from my hubby’s other wives and lovers.  I did not recognize that at the time.  And it was also because of the jealousy ISM and the control ISM.

So a teacher next door came and asked me to go see the director. She told me that little Adam was jumping from desk top to desk top and then running to the brick walls and knocking his head on them chanting: ”ding dong, ding dong, ding dong”.  Adam had a mini lizard tail at 3 years old, knots on his head and blisters on his thumbs. The ISM got him!  
And what about Napoleon?  Have you ever heard the term: Oh, he has a Napoleon complex?  Napoleon was very short.  He had probably been cruelly bullied.  If he had not been bullied, he may have just bullied himself.  (I Sabotage Myself = ISM) He made his mind up to be very, very tall through control and maneuvering of human beings.
So the last count of groups using the 12 Steps was 543.  They use the steps to discover a higher form of release in order to have comfort and not focus on the pain.

Lots of different types of lizard tails can pop up in our children. The youth are all susceptible to the growth of unwanted tails.  Once we get clean and sober, have recovered and are walking in the light; it is not over.   We tend to think: Oh Yeh! Finally all is well on the firing line. The battle is not over.  It is true we have escaped the insanity of it all.  This is Step 2 in our 12 Steps: “Came to believe that a power higher than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”  
Addiction is a family illness and our sanity has been restored for several reasons and new goals.  One of those goals is so that we can be there monitoring and guiding our own baby lizards and the new lizards in the 12 Step programs and rooms as we notice lizard tails that start popping up.
Go to meetings, get a sponsor, do the readings, remember to mediate and do your ‘walking around steps’ (immediate forgiveness and amends, conscious contact with God, carry the message of solution - not pollution!).  This way we will have the x-ray vision to notice budding tails.
12 Step programs for youth are a wonderful thing!   In Arizona there is an organization that brings 12 Steps to the middle and high schools weekly.  Those youth have actually rewritten their 12 Steps into teen talk. It is amazing the support that Teen Addiction Anonymous receives from the local law enforcement and board of education.  One can look them up on the web and see the beta test results of drastic improvement from: bullying, playing hooky, flunking, depression and suicide not to mention good grades.
Little lizards need self-worth, forgiveness toward others and toward themselves, tools to face life on life’s terms, belief in a God that cares, a positive support team and a mentor to run to in the midst of a hateful tribe. I love 12 Steps for youth.  It is a real tail snipper!
Please keep in touch with us for more lizard tales.  And do tell others about us so they can enjoy the wisdom that lizards have to share.