Among all the grief, disillusionment and shame I experienced actual miracles which were inexplicable to those who did not believe. I knew something was keeping me alive and I will recant stories that could have only been possible through divine intervention. None the least of which is and was, the very places I called home for so long.

I tried. I tried to ignore the emptiness and the longing. I tried to ignore what I felt and what I knew, but it will always creep in as an ache. I can’t imagine the damage I have done to my health with all the nights I turned to the bottle for comfort. It always felt like I had it under control and the next morning would always reveal the shattered image of peace that the last  sip brought.

When you think of a prison, you inevitably think of cold harsh cement floors. An achingly small space where the walls echo a monotonous dull roar of pain.  Iron bars that threaten to be your demise if you just gaze on them a little too long, they are unrelenting and massive.  There is very little light to be had and the constant presence of the guard is a sobering reminder that even if you were to break past the prison bars you will never be able to escape his armed post. The silence when night falls is the loudest sound you will ever hear. 

 

Now imagine this prison adorned with plush furnishings, Italian marble and pillars throughout, with beautiful panoramic windows overlooking peaceful ponds and streams. Soft breezes of all four seasons and angelic wildlife right outside the bars.  Days filled with laughter and creativity. You are not let out into a prison yard but allowed lavish vacations and shopping trips to ease the pain of prison life. Expensive cars, clothes and jewels are all within reach. All within reach, but every day you retire to the fact that it is all a grand illusion. A grand illusion that was created for you and by you. A beautiful mirage of sorts that kept all in order and never let the ugliness of reality rise to the surface. We see it every day in addicts who are heads of companies and even the mom who seems to have it all except the grip of alcohol becomes the very reality that destroys yet another family. The truth always comes out as they say and the truth hurts every single time. The truth, or my prison, became the stage I stood on and the courtroom I would be judged in. A pivotal time in my life that if I did not face it, I would be doomed to suffer the same consequences again and again. After all, the same scenario kept repeating itself throughout my entire life. All I knew is that I could not live one more day to repeat this pattern. I sat in my solitude in what I recognized to be another plush palace I would have to escape from. I put up the bars yet again one by one and it was so beautiful that the outside world who didn’t know my story thought I was the luckiest and most blessed person they knew.

 

Life will continue to present the same situations, the same lessons over and over until you finally find it within yourself to admit it and deal with it!  Your prison, is your experience as a child or an adult that has altered your perception of the world and altered who you really are. It cripples you and the only way out is the next drink, or the next meal or the next sexual encounter.  It drives us to make choices and decisions we know are bad for us. We know and we do it anyway. Decisions that are not only harmful to ourselves but also the ones we love. Generations end up suffering if the chain is not broken. The very people we wish to hurt the least we hurt the most, it’s always the way!