A Thirst of Our Being for Wholeness

The word "addiction" has the same Latin root as the words "diction" and "dictator" - 'ad' + 'dicere' - which means, essentially, that the addict really has "no say" in his or her behavior.

At heart, a spiritual malady, the "false spirits" of alcohol, drugs, sex, or what have you, gives the addict a taste of the divine, but he or she is never allowed to remain. And, over time, it takes more and more of that which he or she is addicted to, just to get a glimpse of the state of peace and good feeling that was once achieved. Eventually, even a glimpse will be out of reach of the then hopeless addict. And then the individual, once fully addicted, really has no say in how this process inevitably works out.

The thirst of the alcoholic, Carl Jung explained to Bill Wilson, is "the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval terms: union with God."

Addiction is thus a "separation" of our consciousness and being from Wholeness, and unless we can overcome the duality of the false ego of the seeming "self" and our true state of consciousness and being, we will once again try to approach the divine with whatever our drink or drug of choice may be.

Ram Dass - a spiritual teacher who knows a thing or two about addiction - puts it this way: "What you find out with most addictive things (is) that they give you a short rush but they don't allow you to remain at home. They just allow you the taste of it. And then the minute you get thrown out, you go to heaven but you can't stay because you didn't come in through the right way."

However, Dass notes, "(w)hen you start to stand back and see your predicament and see what you are doing, there is a way from a spiritual perspective in which you begin with that slight bit of awareness to extricate yourself from the chain of reactivity" that keeps you in addiction.

"When people come to me with addictions," Dass says, "I'm inclined to say, start doing spiritual practices. Start doing the studies that will allow you to see yourself in a new way, that will allow you to understand what that hunger is you are feeding in a new way, to just get a little different perspective on it."

"The line I always use," he says, "is, "How poignant I am! How poignant the human condition!"

Grave Mental and Emotional Disorders: 'The AA Member, Medications & Other Drugs''

In the "How It Works" excerpt that is read to open so many A.A. meetings, we face the fact that many of us may "suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of (us) do recover if (we) have the capacity to be honest." As one who has suffered from such disorders, in sobriety, I am grateful that those words are there. And it is not surprising that they are there, considering that we know that "the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind." [Alcoholics Anonymous, page 23.]

I am also grateful that I have learned, and been shown in A.A., that an additional mental illness - in my instance depression - is no impediment to recovery if it is addressed realistically and soberly.

In fact, the doctors who I have seen to treat this additional "outside" problems have, in some instances, helped me to gain some of the greatest insights into my 'self' - which is, after all, the root cause of my alcoholism and addiction, as well as my depression. 

Indeed, I have been blessed to have a plentitude of what Bill called the "loving advisors" who helped steer him through his alcoholic addiction, as well as his own battles with chronic and lasting depression.

"Had I not been blessed with wise and loving advisers," Bill writes in the August 1961 Grapevine, "I might have cracked up long ago. A doctor once saved me from death by alcoholism because he obliged me to face up to the deadliness of that malady. Another doctor, a psychiatrist, later on helped me save my sanity because he led me to ferret out some of my deep-lying defects. From a clergyman I acquired the truthful principles by which we A.A.'s now try to live."

"But these precious friends did far more than supply me with professional skills. I learned that I could go to them with any problem whatsoever. Their wisdom and their integrity were mine for the asking."

"Many of my dearest A.A. friends have stood with me in exactly this same relation. Oftentimes they could help where others could not, simply because they were A.A.'s."

["As Bill Sees It," page 303.]

Rather than morosely seeing depression as a debilitating character defect, I have come to see it as a readily treatable condition - much like alcoholism - rather than as a moral feeling. Unlike alcoholism, however, my depression requires that I take medication on a daily basis. Like meditation and prayer - which, not uncoincidentally, are also very helpful in dealing with depression - the medication that I take is, for me, a necessity and not a crutch.

Having had the chance to share my experience in dealing with one of the "grave mental and emotional disorders" which others in the program also struggle with, I have found that reading and understanding our pamphlet on "The AA Member - Medications & Other Drugs" is invaluable.  I am not a doctor, and as just another 'alky' (albeit with a concurrent illness), I would not dream of sharing my "medical expertise" with an  alcoholic who is a fellow member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Fortunately, the "Other Medications" pamphlet contains a report from a group of physicians in A.A. that the General Service Conference approved, presumably, for use in just such instances. At the beginning of the pamphlet it states the following:

"The experience of some A.A. members reveals that drug misuse can threaten the achievement and maintenance of sobriety."

"Yet some A.A. members must take prescribed medication in order to treat certain serious medical problems."

"Experience has shown that this problem can be minimized if the following suggestions are carefully heeded:

1. Remember that as a recovering alcoholic your automatic response will be to turn to chemical relief for uncomfortable feelings and to take more than the usual, prescribed amount. Look for nonchemical solutions for the aches and discomforts of everyday living.
2. Remember that the best safeguard against drug-related relapse is an active participation in the A.A. program of recovery.
3. No A.A. Member Plays Doctor.
4. Be completely honest with yourself and your physician regarding use of medication.
5. If in doubt, consult a physician with demonstrated experience in the treatment of alcoholism.
6. Be frank about your alcoholism with any physician or dentist you consult. Such confidence will be respected and is most helpful to the doctor.
7. Inform the physician at once if you experience side effects from prescribed drugs.
8. Consider consulting another doctor if a personal physician refuses or fails to recognize the peculiar susceptibility of alcoholics to sedatives, tranquilizers, and stimulants.
9. Give your doctor copies of this pamphlet.

"Because of the difficulties that many alcoholics have with drugs," the pamphlet continues (at page 13), "some members have taken the position that no one in A.A. should take any medication. While this position has undoubtedly prevented relapses for some, it has meant disaster for others."

"A.A. members and many of their physicians," it further continues, "have described situations in which depressed patients have been told by A.A.s to throw away the pills, only to have depression return with all its difficulties, sometimes resulting in suicide."

As a member who has come all-too-close to suicide in sobriety let me be brutally honest with you. If an A.A. member gives such advice to another member, he or she is self-centeredly playing with that person's life. If the advice is given to you - even by your sponsor - ignore it and talk to your doctor about it. If you hear another person giving such advice, intervene. You may save that person's life.

Remember, as the pamphlet stresses in capitals: No A.A. Member Plays Doctor!

But also remember that, thank God, there are many "wise and loving advisers" we can turn to - inside and outside the program for help with any of the difficulties we may face in life. We are "no longer alone," nor need we be.

Three Paths: Self-Examination, Meditation and Prayer

As alcoholic addicts "in recovery" we are blessed people. Most addicts will die without ever knowing recovery . . . perhaps without knowing, or believing, there is such a thing as recovery. Many friends we ran with are already gone. And, even most the so-called "normal" people will go their own graves questioning if there is such a thing as God . . . or, worse yet, 'bargaining' with him. Very few will awaken to the reality that underneath their ordinary ego-consciousness lies the Infinite and the Divine.

"For the most of us the secret of man still remains to be mastered. What has lain dark in the earlier centuries remains unrevealed. . . . The majority of men will die without caring and without knowing whether man has something divine in him or is a mere skin-bag of flesh, blood, bones nerves and muscles. They are strangers to their own selves.
          (Paul Brunton, "Discover Yourself," page 133.)

However, to reap the blessings that recovery offers, it is essential that we work to attain the higher levels of "God-consciousness" that are available within us. The 12 Steps require a concerted and daily practice of prayer, meditation and self-examination to do so.

While prayer - like self-examination and, particularly, meditation - is 'good in and of itself' and "can bring much relief and benefit," It is when meditation, self-examination and prayer "are logically related and interwoven" that they provide us with "an unshakeable foundation for living." ("Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions," page 98.) We begin the process of "self-examination" by writing out a 4th Step moral inventory, and continue to (or continuously) take a "fearless moral inventory" through application of Step 10. In Step 11, both prayer and meditation are required.

Meditation without prayer is mute; prayer without meditation is deaf; either, without an initial and continuing self-examination, are bound to fall short of providing a sane, happy and purposeful life, as one will basically be talking and listening to one's "self."

Without consistent and persistent "self-examination, we are blinded to the spiritual reality that we are far greater than, and separate from, that "painful inner dialogue" of our egoic "self." If we are to establish and build a channel to our higher consciousness (or "God-consciousness," as the more religious call this inner resource), we need to discipline our apparent "self" so that it may be "reduced at depth."

Remember the cautionary warning we are given in Step Three of the "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions," pp. 39-40: "More sobriety brought about by the admission of alcoholism and by attendance at a few meetings is very good indeed, but it is bound to be a far cry from permanent sobriety and a happy and contented life."

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Those who work through - and then work on - the 12 Steps are offered a gift that is rare, and perhaps rarer still in the world outside of meetings and our circles of friendships. As Swami Vivikenanda, one of the first and great Eastern spiritual teachers to visit the West in the early 1900s, observed:

" . . . (N)ot one in a million can think of anything other than phenomena. To the vast majority of men nature appears to be only a changing, whirling, combining mingling mass of change. Few of us ever have a glimpse of the calm sea beneath."

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The alcoholic addict in recovery is truly a blessed person . . . and all our suffering was just a blessing we could not see at the time!