11/10/15
1.  The Little Red Hen – 1880
a)  A little red hen finds a grain a wheat and asks
for help from the other barnyard animals to
plant it. But none volunteer
b)  She asks them 4 more times - at harvest,
then at threshing, milling, and baking bread.
But none volunteer
c)  She sits down to eat the bread, and asks who
will help her eat it, and they all volunteer. But
she declines their help
d)  Moral
i.  People easily fall into the trap of wanting a
the benefits of a good life without putting
in the work to attain them. They want an
easy life/Recovery handed to them
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ii.  But, the truth is that if you don’t do the hard
work of living a healthy life, you won’t
experience the benefits of a healthy life.
There is no easy path to Recovery. It takes
lots of work
iii.  People easily fall into the trap of using others.
Letting others do the hard work, and taking
advantage of those people
iv.  In Recovery, we need to learn healthy
boundaries and not let people use us. We do
not want to enable others to be lazy or
irresponsible
2.  The Boy who cried Wolf – 1687
a)  The poor people in a village were worried
about wolves attacking their sheep. A plan
was put into place – if the shepherd boy sees a
wolf, he is to scream “Wolf”, and the people of
the village would come running.
b)  The shepherd boy decides to check if this plan
works, so he cries, “Wolf”, and the people
come running.
c)  A little later, the shepherd boy felt the urge of
sick humour, power and control. He yelled,
“Wolf”, again, and the people came running
d)  He does this a few more times. The people
get tired of false alarms, so they stop coming
e)  One day, a wolf actually attacks the sheep.
The shepherd boy cries, “Wolf”, but nobody
comes. And the sheep are slaughtered
f)  Moral
A.  Many people in addiction ask for help (Cry
“Wolf”), but don’t mean it
i.  They relapse and are feeling remorse, and
a bunch of bad consequences are on the
doorstep – lose job, kids, partner, home.
They cry, “Wolf!”. People offer to help.
But they discover that the person doesn’t
want to change, they just want somebody
to take the consequences away. After
awhile, people get tired of the game, and
stop running to help
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ii.  Victim mentality/learned helplessness – they
will tell you a long list of problems and talk
about how much they hate their life, and wish
that it was better. You tell them some
practical things they can do to improve their
life, but they don’t follow it. You discover that
they just want sympathy and attention
B.  People from Complex Trauma create what
they fear and are trying to prevent
i.  They want validation, attention, and they want
people to take them seriously. They want to
prevent being unnoticed and not being taken
seriously. So, they do stuff to get attention.
They create drama, tell sensational stories, act
out, cry “Wolf!”. It gets them attention at first,
but after a while, it makes people more
determined not to give them any attention
C.  This story also shows the consequence for
chronic lying. After a while, people don’t
believe you even if you are telling the truth.
They keep you at arm’s length. And it takes a
long time to rebuild trust
3.  The Tortoise and the Hare
a)  A hare (rabbit) ridicules a slow-moving Tortoise
b)  The tortoise become tired of the Hare's
bragging and taunting, and challenges him to a
race
c)  The hare agrees and sees it as an opportunity
to further humiliate the tortoise
d)  The race begins and the hare quickly is a long
way ahead of the tortoise
e)  Confident of winning, the hare takes a nap
midway through the race.
f)  When the Hare awakes however, he finds that
his competitor, crawling slowly but steadily,
has arrived before him.
g)  Moral
i.  Recovery is a marathon, not a sprint
ii.  The key ingredient to winning a long race is
perseverance – faithfully plugging away
iii.  Success is not determined by how well you
run over a short distance, but if you persevere
on days when running is hard, or on days
when you feel like quitting
iv.  Beware of ego and overconfidence
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4.  The Ugly Duckling – 1843 – Hans Christian
Andersen
a)  A mother duck is sitting on a nest of 10 eggs.
She doesn’t realize that one of the eggs isn’t
hers. It’s a swan egg
b)  When they hatch, one of the babies looks
weird. It doesn’t look like the others. It is
considered to be ugly
c)  It is ostracized. It doesn’t fit in. It feels like it
doesn’t belong. It feels ugly compared to the
cute ducklings. It feels very lonely
d)  The baby internalizes the messages and
begins on a journey to find acceptance
e)  It does not succeed with its original family, so it
leaves the barnyard and finds a family of wild
swans. It seems like they accept it, but once Fall
comes, they all fly south, leaving it all alone again
f)  Winter comes, and a farmer finds the little bird
almost frozen to death. The farmer brings it into
his home, but the noisy children scare the bird,
and it flees and spends the winter in a cave
g)  In the spring, a flock of swans lands on the lake.
The swan was considered to be the most
beautiful bird. The ugly duckling feels intimidated
by their beauty. It is pretty sure that they will
reject him if he tries to join them, but he is so
desperate and broken from being all alone that
he decides to throws himself on their mercy and
risk being rejected again
h)  He is shocked when the swans welcome and
accept him, and even more surprised when he
looks at his reflection in the water and
discovers that he is a beautiful swan – the
most beautiful of all birds
i)  Moral
i.  Most people from Complex Trauma feel like
the ugly duckling. They feel like they don’t
belong or fit in. They feel ugly and alone.
ii.  All their attempts to fit in and find acceptance
have not turned out well. Result - Shame
iii.  But once they find their true family, they
realize that they are beautiful and accepted
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