Caught Up In A Generational Curse

Over the years I have heard people sling the term ‘generational curse’ around while speaking on the subject of strife and struggle. “The Smiths have been fighting this ugly generational curse for as long as I can remember”, is a typical phrase that comes to mind in my case. There was no real biblical or logical explanation that usually followed such a blunt message, because it was presumed that such statement would of course be common knowledge. I had no idea what it meant. As the years pass me by, and I grow older and marginally wiser, I’ve found I’m alone in the ignorance. Without having an solid description of the topic, I went on for years of my life presuming that it was some sort of voodoo curse. This curse was cast on a family who obviously did such horrid wrongs, and retribution for those crimes against humanity would stay with their bloodline for hundreds of years. I knew nothing about God, nothing!

Fast forward from those guilt-ridden days, and the light has finally started to shine in. I’ve been witness to a bona fide generational curse, and I think a lot of you are going to be able relate to it. I guess you might say that I’ve now crossed over the path from doubter, to a firm believer in the aphorism.

A friend of mine, whose name will remain anonymous, has been struggling so deeply with drug addiction. He has struggled for years with drugs and alcohol. To his credit, he has managed to clean up for a few months, but eventually he succumbs to the blackhole like force of his disease. He picks up again and starts his path back to the garbage dump of life, located on Utter Insanity Lane.

If introduced you to this man, from all outside appearances, there is little chance you would ever peg him as a drug addict. You would also assume that this man has an amazing life, thinking just how much he has going for himself. He is an athletic guy, with the blonde hair and blue eye. He posses a delightful charm and kind-heartedness that attracts people to him like bees to honey. He owns and operates a profitable business.He drives a beautiful truck, and lives on a lake. As of recent, he has become a father of his second child. Surely a man with all these things to live for couldn’t possibly throw it all away in exchange for the next high, could he? Well, he has done just that, and more than once.

With everything to lose, most people would tell him to smarten the fuck up. You think he certainly would come to his senses after all the proof of destruction and darkness that follows when he picks up.

Sadly, you hear this type of story in the rooms of recovery is heard time and time again. I don’t even bat an eye when I hear people talk about losing hundreds of thousands of dollars any more. This use to make my stomach sick. When I hear about a mother or father being fired from an upper echeloned position, losing their kids and every cent they amassed to addiction, I don’t even lift an eyebrow. My lack of reaction to such gruesome real-life events is disconcerting to say the least, but it’s commonplace for people who struggle with a disease that has no face.

In my friend’s case, he was raised by parents who didn’t quiet make the grade when it came to emotional availability. A mold for life in which they themselves were probably casted into and dealt with or worse growing up. You see, we all are cast into a similar molds as our parents to the nature and nurture of it all, but the great thing is the initial design can be altered.

What I’ve seen from my own experience on this journey is that people have become so comfortable with living in pain that they don’t even clue into the fact that things could be better. You don’t always feel the weight of something you’ve been carrying until it is released from you. Onlookers may see the problems as clear as day, but self-deception seems to reign supreme for many of us. Attempting to convince someone that they need to do more work to heal themselves when they don’t remotely recognize the scar tissue is often a very very tough sell. Most just ignore the call to action and continue to march through life fighting a hidden battle. It’s heartbreaking to see.

My friend is currently out on one of those relapses again. If he overdoses and dies then his next of kin will be forced to deal with a trauma could have been avoided. Thus setting the trauma cycle in motion again, it’s often a revolving door when you look back in the family. Recidivism is real ya’ll. His kids never chose to be born into the family they landed in, but that is the card that they were dealt, and the cycle can be stopped. The cycle must be stopped. The decision resides with him(and God). I for one made it absolutely clear in my mind, that in addition to stopping drinking, I too would setting out to abolish an unhealthy cycle that has been going in my own family for multiple generations. I don’t look to the decision as a way for to prove my own brilliance and accomplishment, I look to it as the easier softer way for me and the people I love. You see, the centering problem resides with our thinking, and the head notoriously known for deceit. The solution, on the other-hand, connects you with truth and a peace that is often told to surpass all understanding. I doubted this too for several years when others told me about it, but it too has manifested itself in my life. What seems to work best in stopping this cycle is placing aside all of my prior notions on basically everything in life, and being open enough to trust that just maybe God might love me, and I might learn to love myself.