Maintenance of Our Spiritual Condition

"It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do. . . . We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition." (Emphasis added.)

Alcoholics Anonymous, page 85

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"More sobriety brought about by not drinking and attendance at a few meetings is very good, indeed," Bill W. observed. "(B)ut," he pointed out, "it is bound to be a far cry from permanent sobriety and a contented, useful life." (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 39-40.)

Why is this?

Simply because it is all too easy to let up on the spiritual work that must be practiced daily if we are to stay on the spiritual path, to attain and enlarge our spiritual consciousness, and to attain "a new state or consciousness and being." The daily practice of "self-examination, meditation and prayer" - a practice that all of the world's great wisdom traditions advocate - is required for spiritual growth and spiritual living.

Almost invariably, however, at some point in their recovery most alcoholic addicts will let up on the "daily . . . maintenance of (their) spiritual condition." Some, like me, will survive by dint of good fortune (or, perhaps, good karma) to again take up the spiritual path. Others will die - quickly or slowly - often after many repeated and failed attempts to regain their sobriety.

Each day that elapses without practicing the necessary measure of "self-examination, meditation and prayer" that is required to deflate one's ego (and keep it deflated),  in my experience, makes it easier for another day to pass without the requisite practice. The inevitable outcome is grave, however, physically or literally.

Having once attained sobriety and obtained some freedom from the ceaseless chatter of the egoic self - having reduced to some extent the intensity and frequency of one's "painful inner dialogue" - it becomes all too easy to turn to the matters of the world and neglect the matters of the psyche and the soul. This is particularly so, if we fall victim (as I did) to the "delusion" that life has somehow become "manageable."

All our time time then, it seems, is taken up by the struggle to either: (a) keep the things (money, possessions, relationships, etc.) we have attained and think are necessary for our continuing security and happiness, or (b) to pursue the things we don't have, but which we think are necessary to make us feel happy and secure.

Unfortunately, the sense of "calamity, (the) pomp, and (the) worship of other things" engendered by such pursuits obscures "the fundamental idea of God" that is inherent in each of us. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.) It is a spiritual truth that happiness and security is attained not by what we have, but rather by what we do not need to have.

"Why, is it," author, videographer and minister, Rev. Ted Nottingham is asked (in the video below), " (that) after introducing the . . . inner work on one's self and meditation to so many people, do so few actually move forward (on the spiritual path) in a committed, long-term way?" It is, I think, a very good question for all of us in recovery to consider.

"It is so hard to find even those few who are interested in these profound realities," Rev. Nottingham notes, "in part because it requires such change on our part to enter into the wisdom teachings - whatever they may be - from across all great traditions. If one truly discovers the core of their meaning, it has to do with spiritual awakening, spiritual evolution, self-awareness, brutal self-honesty, and an understanding of what it takes to go against the current of one's self."

"(M)ost people . . . drop off very quicky," he observes. "Even to begin with there are so few who are interested in just the general concepts. But then, (even) amongst those (few), there may be an initial excitement, curiousity (or) enticement into the mysteries of the sacred, of a greater conscious, of new understanding, of self-mastery, (and) of understanding others. . . . And, yet, before you know it they just drift back to the old ways."

"Numerous teachers have pointed out that you are worse off having found something and then turned away from it," he notes, "because (then) you can never go back to sleep in quite the same way (and) live as if you hadn't discovered another path."

"It is indeed a great human tragedy," says Nottingham, "to have come close to life transforming teachings that offer the kind of human wholeness and fulfillment, radiance, (and) goodness that they are designed to do, and then to walk away from them and fall back into the dreary egoism and self-absorption that makes life ultimately meaningless."

"Do not leave before the miracle happens," A.A. newcomers are often urged. "It is exceedingly hard," as many old-timers who have 'slipped' point out, "to have a head full of A.A. and a belly full of beer." Yet, there seems to be (as Nottingham points out) an all-too human propensity to fall off the spiritual path once one has had the barest tasting of the spiritual fruits that continuing and advancing on the path will yield. (This, I would note, may be especially true of alcoholic addicts who are, it has been observed, "rebellious by nature.")

"The main reason to those out there who wonder why so few remain consistently (and) focused on these teachings of whatever variety," says Nottingham, "is to recognize that it is part of our human condition, to be so fragile, to be constantly on the edge of just falling off (or) falling back into automatic routines and the easy way."

I am neither Christian, nor am I non-Christian, per se.  Rather, I follow the advice given to me by my late spiritual mentor  to "study all religions until I become able to see the sameness in them all." Or, as Bill W., advised, at page 87 of the Big Book: "Be quick to see where religious people are right. They have much to offer us." )

In that vein, there is a particularly cogent observation of Jesus that so figuratively answers the question of why so many people let up on the spiritual practices that have saved, or can save their lives. That being:

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

Matthew 7:13-14

Suffering and Spiritual Awakening

"As long as we placed self-reliance first, a genuine reliance upon a Higher Power was out of the question. That basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek and do God's will, was missing."

"For us, the process of gaining a new perspective was unbelievably painful."

". . . In every case (however), pain (has) been the price of admission into a new life. But this admission price has purchased more than we expected. It brought a measure of humility, which we soon discovered to be a healer of pain. We began to fear pain less, and desire humility more than ever."

". . . We saw we needn't always be bludgeoned and beaten into humility. It  could come quite as much from our voluntary reaching for it as it could from unremitting suffering." (Emphasis added.)

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 72 & 76

Arctic explorer, Knud Rasmussen, (1879-1933), returned to Europe with stories of the suffering endured by Inuit shamans, the "medicine men" of the High Arctic, in their ritual initiations. One such shaman, Igjugarjuk, told Rasmussen how as a young adolescent he had been taken out on the ice-floes by an elder shaman. There, in the constant dark and cold of a polar winter, he had been left by himself in a snow shelter for forty days with minimal contact in order that he might meditate upon "the Great Spirit," and thereby attain a spiritual awakening.

"Sometimes I died a little," Igjugarjuk said. But, then, he told Rasmussen, "a helping spirit" arrived "in the form of a woman who seemed to hover in the air above (me)." After this, he was taken home by the elder shaman, there to diet and fast for an additional five months under the elder shaman's guidance. Such ordeals, he told Rasmussen, are "the best means of attaining a knowledge of hidden things."

"The only true wisdom," lgjugarjuk said, "lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and can be reached only through suffering. Privation and suffering alone open the mind of a man to all that is hidden to others."

Najagneq, circa 1922

Another shaman, Najagneq, told Rasmussen of his "venture into the silence," an ordeal in which he met the spirit he called Sila - a spirit, according to Najabneq, that "cannot be explained in so many words." "Sila," he told Rasmussen, is "a very strong spirit, the upholder of the universe, of the weather, in fact of all life on earth. (A spirit) so mighty that his speech to man comes not through ordinary words, but through storms, snowfall, rain showers, the tempests of the sea, all the forces that man fears, or through sunshine, calm seas, or small, innocent, playing children who understand nothing."

"When times are good," Najagneq told Rasmussen, "Sila has nothing to say to mankind. He has disappeared into his infinite nothingness and remains away as long as people do not abuse life but have respect for their daily food. No one has ever seen Sila," he said. "His place of sojourn is so mysterious that he is with us and infinitely far away at the same time."

"The inhabitant or soul of the universe," Najagneq said, "is never seen; its voice alone is heard. All we know is that it has a gentle voice, like a woman, a voice so fine and gentle that even children cannot become afraid. And what it says is: 'Sila ersinarsinivdluge,'" i.e., "There is nothing to be afraid of in the universe."

(From Schizophrenia: The Inward Journey, by Joseph Campbell)

The alcoholic addict, in recovery, knows much about suffering - both the untreated suffering of addiction, and the suffering that is frequently endured in sobriety as he or she awakens to to the spiritual power that resides "deep down in every man woman and child." (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.)

"Faith is a dark night for man," St. John of the Cross wrote in The Dark Night of the Soul, "but in this very way it gives him light. . . . Like a blind man he must lean on dark faith, accept it for his guide and light, and rest on nothing of what he understands, tastes, feels, or imagines. . . . To reach the supernatural bounds a person must depart from his natural bounds and leave self far off in respect to his interior and exterior limits in order to mount from a low state to the highest."

"When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or avoid," writes Bill W. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 53), "we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else he is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?"

Painful as it may be, for every alcoholic addict has a lower or higher pride - be it pride of intellect, pride of independence, pride of person, pride of strength, or even pride of faith - each such person, on attaining true humility, will have passed his or her 'Dark Night of the Soul' and will have attained to a quiet consciousness of the Spirit, or God, that pervades their being and the world around them.

Dealing With Anger

"When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. In dealing with resentments, we set them down on paper. We listed people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry. We asked ourselves why we were angry. In most cases it was found that our self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our personal relationships (including sex) were hurt or threatened. So we were sore. . . . "

"We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? . . ."

"This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like the symptoms and the way they disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."" (Emphasis added.)

 Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 64-67

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self . . . to be made new in the attitude of your minds . . . to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore . . . “In your anger do not sin." Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry."

Ephesians 4: 22-26

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Resentments are, simply put, thoughts that anger us which we hold onto over time. Thus, in all the world's great wisdom teachings, anger is seen as a base emotion that must be addressed promptly as it separates the person who is angered from Wholeness. 

In Buddhism, anger is seen as one of the "three poisons" that perpetuate the suffering of the unenlightened being. A Chinese proverb observes that "anger is a toxic poison that eats away the vessel which contains it from the inside out." In Christian teachings, anger is seen as one of "the seven deadly sins" - meaning one of the seven ways in which our thoughts are misdirected and harmful. (Thus, we are advised not to "let the sun go down" while we are still angry, for anger held over time becomes deep resentments that separate our being in consciousness from God.) 

In A.A. parlance, "anger" is seen as one of the character defects of the ego which must be removed in order to allay the spiritual malady (i.e., the separation from Wholeness) which lies at the heart of our alcoholic addiction." Thus, we are cautioned (at page 66) in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous that:  

"If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison."

But what a subtle, varied, yet powerful, emotion anger is. How deeply held are the "old ideas" that give rise to our anger in the form of resentments; and how powerfully do anger and resentments continue to affect us. "To be angry," observes Rev. Ted Nottingham (in the attached video), "puts us outside of God's will."

"According to the Holy Teachings, not only of (the Christian) religion, but of all Great Teachings, "he points out, "anger is a poison, anger is a lie. Because when we are angry all that we can see is what justifies us. . . . We can only see that little piece that we think allows us to be angry. We'll never give that to the other person who is angry - we'll never justify their anger - but we can always come up with lots of good reasons for (ours). . . . (Yet) suddenly all of our justifications, all of our self-righteousness, all of our bad habits are laid bare (and) shown for what they are."

"It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? what about "justifiable" anger? If somebody cheats us, aren't we entitled to be mad? Can't we be properly anger with self-righteous folk? For us of A.A. these are dangerous exceptions. We have found that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it."

The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 90

"Be sure," Rev. Nottingham notes, "that every time you are angry you are turning away from the Holy (and) disabling . . .  Spirit in your life." And this is true, it seems, irrespective of the many variations of anger that may manifest in our consciousness, including (according to Nottingham): "malice, irritability, rejection, resentment, hatred, intimidation, dissatisfaction, complaining, criticizing, condemnation, annoyance, frustration (and) indignation.

"The way we live!" he exclaims. "You can go from first thing in the morning until the last thing at night and (anger) is all you have got. No wonder," he notes, "people can't find God. We are cutting ourselves off. . . . We are supposed to oppose that part of us that is turned away from the will of God."

Fearlessness Required

"Notice that the word "fear" is bracketed alongside the difficulties (in our 4th Step inventory). . . . This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling? Sometimes we think fear ought to be classified with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble."

"We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them down on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them. We asked ourselves why we had them. Wasn't it because self-reliance failed us? Self-reliance was good so far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence but it didn't fully solve the fear problem, or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse."

 "Perhaps there is a better way -- we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves." 

". . . The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage." 

Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 67-68 (Emphasis added.)

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There is actually nothing "demanded" or "required" in A.A. (or its sister organizations), even the 12 Steps themselves are only "suggested" as a program of action that will relieve the sufferer of his or her addiction to alcohol, etc. However, we are "begged" by those who came before us to be "fearless and thorough from the very start." We are "begged" (I believe) because the author of the 'Big Book' knew that all fears are a manifestation of self, of the ego, of the seemingly ceaseless chatter in our mind. Indeed, he observes that on our old basis of living fear permeated the very "fabric of our existence."

He begged us to be fearless, I believe, because he knew that an unexpectedly new and "different basis" other than that of relying on the random, fearful thoughts of the ego/self, a new "basis of relying upon God," is essential to recovery. We are, therefore, not "asked" but "begged" to be fearless, for "fearlessness" is (as Mahatma Gandhi once observed) "the first prerequisite of spirituality." For those of us (i.e., all of us) whose very lives are dependent on an awakening of the Spirit within, we cannot allow egoically-based, self-centered fears - all of them imaginary - to cloud out and obscure the perspective of our new found inner reality.

It is often said that fear (and fear's inverse clone, desire) is generated by our thinking that we will fail to get something we think we need, or we think that we might lose something which we already have and believe that we need to hold on to. Yet, when faced fearlessly, it is abundantly clear that such thinking is fanciful: nothing nor anyone is permanently ours, nor will they soothe our existential fears or desires; the spiritual teachings of religious and wisdom traditions around the world, as well as the spiritual experiences witnessed in A.A. and its sister organizations, make this clear. After all, as an old-timer pointed out to me years ago when I first cleaned up, "You never see an armored car in a funeral procession." Nor, I would add, do you ever see the hearse pulling a U-Haul. Fear is, thus, merely an egoic and self-centered "need announced,"as Neale Donald Walsch (author of "What God Wants") observes in the video attached below.

"(P)ride, leading to self-justification, and always spurred by conscious or unconscious fears," Bill W. writes, "is the basic breeder of most human difficulties. . . . Pride lures us into making demands upon ourselves or upon others which cannot be met without perverting or misusing our God-given instincts. When the satisfaction of our instincts for sex, security, and society becomes the sole object of our lives, then pride steps in to justify our excesses."

"All these failings," he notes, "generate fear, a soul sickness in its own right. Then fear, in turn, generates more character defects. Unreasonable fear that our instincts will not be satisfied drives us to covet the possessions of others, to lust for sex and power, to become angry when our instinctive demands are threatened, to be envious when the ambitions of others seem to be realized while ours are not. We eat, drink, and grab for more of everything that we need, fearing we shall never have enough. And with general alarm at the prospect of work, we stay lazy. We loaf and procrastinate, or at best work grudgingly and under half steam. These fears," he points out, "are the termites that devour the foundations of whatever sort of life we try to build."

"So," Bill concludes, "when A.A. suggests a fearless moral inventory, it must seem to every newcomer that more is being asked of him than he can do. Both his pride and his fear beat him back every time he tries to look within himself. Pride says, "You need not pass this way," and Fear says, "You dare not look!" But the testimony of A.A.'s who have really tried a moral inventory is that pride and fear of this sort turn out to be bogeymen, nothing else."

(Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 48-49.)

As Gandhi points out: "Fearlessness is (thus, indeed) the first prerequisite of spirituality . . . (and) cowards can never be moral." Therefore, do not be cowed by the thoughts of the ego, a false self which is constructed and driven wholly by our misguided fears and our outsized, unfulfillable desires.

The Practice of Spiritual Awakening

"Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer."

Alcoholics Anonymous, page 87.

WARNING: This blog entry (and the attached video by Rev. Ted Nottingham) may be somewhat confusing to those readers who may not have completed the Twelve Steps, or those among us who do not seriously seek, or have let up on our efforts, to "improve our conscious contact with God." 

Please remember: "Keep an Open Mind."

"Do not conform any longer to the world," St. Paul advised, "but be transformed by the renewal of your mind." (Rom. 12:2) And what is "renewal" if it is not "recovery" - a "recovery" which is at the heart of A.A's program of action and, indeed, which is at the heart of all the world's great religious and wisdom traditions?

"Religion," notes Rev. Nottingham  (real 'inner religious' transformation, as opposed to the too-often insignificant and superficial trappings and practices of a mere 'outer religion'), "means to relink or reconnect with Spirit." In the following video, in which he introduces "a perennial teaching, timeless and universal, of spiritual transformation," Nottingham surveys a number of little known spiritual teachings and teachers - everything from Orthodox Christianity to Zen Buddhism - with an emphasis on "The Fourth Way" teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky.

These teachings may prove invaluable to those of us in recovery who are constantly trying to expand and deepen our spiritual recovery - even though, perhaps, there are few enough amongst us who wish or are willing to go to the deeper depths which may be available through outside traditions. But, "keep an open mind", as there are hidden, esoteric depths to every tradition, and with each new depth we experience, a new and further depth awaits just beyond.

As Ouspensky observed:

"The evolution of human consciousness is a question of personal efforts and is therefore a rare exception amongst human beings. . . . Most people simply do not want to awaken. To become a different being we must want it greatly, and over many years. Without the necessary efforts we will not evolve. Moreover, we must acquire qualities we may believe we already possess, but in fact do not."

"The attainment of higher levels of consciousness," says Nottingham, "is closely related to certain religious practices which we find in all cultures, such as meditation and contemplation. Yet," he notes, "(t)hese are difficult paths to tread because our attention is always being caught by the ceaseless chattering going on in our heads." Nonetheless, he points out, "(i)t is possible to become receptive to a state of pure consciousness without thought, where truth is revealed to us directly without words."




"Awakening from the sleep of a carnal life, an externally-driven life, does not happen automatically," Nottingham observes, "it requires directed attention and sincere, repeated efforts. . . . You will not (however) make the effort to awaken," he notes, "if you do not know you are asleep. We have to realize our captivity before it can occur to us to escape from it."


Further helpful videos are available on Ted Nottingham's Youtube channel, and his books (as well as those of his wife, Rebecca Nottingham, and certain of their valuable translations) are available online. Rev. Nottingham also publishes a free weekly podcast available on PodOmatic.com.

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At the end of the above video, Rev. Nottingham recommends the following practices as tools for attaining spiritual awakening and deepening our spiritual experience:

Tools and Practices for Spiritual Development

• Recognize the sleep of unawareness. These things keep us asleep:
• Being unaware that we are asleep.
• Being unaware that we can choose to be awake.
• Not choosing it.
• Presuming that we are already fully aware.
• Believing that we are already good.
• Negative emotions and our attachment to them.
• Justifying our negative emotions.
• Automatic habits.
• Constant inner talking.
• Fear of change.
• Spiritual laziness.
• Allowing ourselves to be swept up in the current of our responses to life.
• Fearful emotions:
• insecurity,
• embarrassment,
• impatience,
• self-pity,
• dread, anxiety, worry, nervousness,
• criticizing,
• hopelessness,
• depression, despair, and jealousy.

• Discipline your mind to be aware.

• Stop and silence negative thoughts and negative emotions.

• Silence justifications. Never accept your justifications for your negative emotions.

• Don't believe fear. Fear opposes faith.

• Don't consent to anger. Angry emotions have violence in them.

• Remember why you are choosing to overcome your anger. 
• It is unhealthy physically, mentally and spiritually.
• It wastes your energy and life force.
• It never produces goodness.
• To not allow yourself to be under the dominion of changing circumstances.
• To choose to act, not just react to life.
• To become more than only the result of what has done to you.

• Practice not criticizing, not objecting, not exerting or expressing your opinions and attitudes.

• Silence negative inner talking.

• Think of scale and relativity, your universal significance and what is really important.

• For a moment, stand outside of the stream of events and your responses.
• Sense your real self above them and outside them.
• Become aware of your unique individuality and become aware of your relative insignificance.
• Become aware of your connectedness with all things.

• Quiet your mind by thinking about what is good and worthy and beautiful.

• Stop thinking about yourself and how you feel, and what you like and what you don't like, and  whether you approve or not of every person and event.

• Consciously give your attention and time to whatever good things inspire you.

• Realize and accept that you alone are responsible for all of your actions and their consequences in the world.

• Accept not being understood.

• Accept injustice, judgment, condemnation, slander, gossip, and your insufficiency . . . and return good for evil, forgiveness for offense.

• Stop complaining. It is noisy and there is no "Thy will be done" in it.

• Stop taking offense. Humility is not offendable.

• Release your requirements that other people be how you think they should be.

• Release your expectations of life and circumstances and your need to be satisfied by them.

•  Live the fruits of the spirit whether you are satisfied or not.

• Stop thinking that you deserve better. No one deserves anything.

•  Give up having to have the last word.

• Don't worry about the impression you make on others.

• Sacrifice your need to be right.

• Don't speak negatively about any other person.

• Refuse to listen to, believe, or participate in gossip.

• Give up being impatient. It is the vanity of wanting your will now over God's timing.

• Stop thinking about what other people are thinking about you.

• Refuse to accept your justifications for acting badly.

•  Practice being scrupulously honest with yourself and other people.

• Whatever you do, do it to please God. Who else do you have to impress?

• Strive for purity of heart. 
• In purity you will find peace and humility. 
• In humility you will find freedom, authenticity, and serenity.

Process for Spiritual Development

• Aim: Loving God, goodness, purity, servanthood.

• Acquire knowledge to know what you must do to live out your aim.
• Know thyself and know what to do about thyself.

• Direct your attention to  become aware of what is going on inside you, in your thoughts and emotions.

• Observe yourself with:
• scathing honesty,
• perseverance,
• integrity and patience.

• Use discernment to recognize how and when  you are outside God's will which is always good.

• Practice STOP toward your negative thoughts and feelings.
• Practice silence toward them one at a time.

• Create a separation between your authentic self and your automatic habits of thoughts, feelings, attitudes and opinions.

•  Choose what you consent to think, feel and do.

• Choose goodness before gratification -- what you know to be good rather than what feels good.

• Sacrifice, give up, your negative emotions. Don't condemn yourself for them. Change them.

• Do not allow yourself to express negative emotions out loud.

• Make yourself passive to your automatic reactions.

• Make your internal responses quiet so that you can act with intentionality.

• Release your requirements of life, people and circumstances.

• Release your desire for satisfaction.

• Willingly bear your necessary suffering, including all the efforts you must make to develop spiritual maturity and obedience.

Remember that God's nature is one thing and that is perfect Goodness.

Alcohol Addiction and Drug Addiction

 By Alex Kerwin

Alcohol and drug addiction are conditions where a person is physically and possibly mentally addicted to their substance of choice. In some cases, an individual is addicted to more than one substance. The addiction can cause health problems, social problems, legal problems, family problems and work problems. In extreme cases, either type of addiction can lead to death, by either overdose or issues arising from extended use.

As of 2009, in the United States alone, there was an average of 15,183 liver-related alcoholism deaths. That is compared to an average in the same year of 24,518 total deaths from alcohol, and that does not include motor vehicle accidents and alcohol related murder. Between 2000 and 2004, the number of alcohol-related deaths climbed 0.6 percent on a global scale. It is unclear whether this was due to an increase in alcoholism, binge drinking or a rise in drinking all around. It is known that as countries develop the number of women who consume alcohol rises, so there is an expectation of increase in China and India in the future.

Drug addiction is no less dangerous than alcohol addiction. In fact, in some cases, it is exponentially worse. A lot of street drugs are mixed up in people's houses with absolutely no legal standards for production, due to their illegality. An example of such a drug is Krokodil, which is essentially gasoline and Codeine. The two mixed together become a toxic injected drug that is universally deadly for addicts who do not stop. It begins a cycle of extreme tissue damage, lowering the life expectancy of users to two to three years. Furthermore, it is an injected drug, which is always dangerous, given the potential spread of disease.

Statistics show that about one in nine people between 12 and 25 have abused prescription drugs. This trend is not changing. In fact, all the evidence points to a rise in prescription drug abuse among Americans. Between 1990 and 2000, the rate of people abusing prescription medications almost quadrupled.





Because there are so many dangers related to addiction of both drugs and alcohol, it is paramount that addicts get the help they need. They can find it at abuse treatment centers. Most treatment centers offer a variety of treatments for drug and alcohol abuse. They may offer medicine to patients to ease withdrawals. They may offer counseling. They can have both outpatient and inpatient programs. The trick is finding the right one and committing to it. It is a life-saving choice.

-        Alex Kerwin writes for Treatment-Center.net to raise awareness of the dangers of drug and alcohol addiction.

". . . Any Lengths"

"His craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, in medieval terms: union with God."

Letter from Carl Jung to Bill Wilson, dated January 31, 1961, discussing the recovery of Rolland H. from alcoholic addiction using the Oxford Groups' "word-of-mouth" spiritual program that was passed from Rolland to Ebby T., and on to Bill W.

In the "How It Works" reading, which is customarily read at many A.A. meetings, we hear: "If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it - then you are ready to take certain steps." (Emphasis added.) Reflecting on the early years of sobriety, I ask myself: Was I willing to go to "any lengths?" The answer is quite clearly: "No!" While I didn't drink (or use), joined a group, got a sponsor, did an inventory, shared it and made amends etc., I would not, and did not, pray and meditate on a consistent basis, nor did I give these vital practices any more than a surface trial.

In the "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" (at pp. 39-40) we read: "More sobriety brought about by the admission of alcoholism and by attendance at a few meeting is very good indeed, but it is bound to be a far cry from permanent sobriety and a contented, useful life." And, how true that ignored warning turned out to be for me! If you knew me at five years sober, you would likely have said: "Yes! He's got it." But by roughly the time I was fifteen years sober, having achieved much in the worldly sense of life - profession, money, prestige, family and home, etc. - not only was I profoundly discontented and virtually useless to friends, family and the community, but my sobriety and my very life were in grave peril. The reason? I had neglected the clear warning in the 'Big Book' (at p. 85) that "(w)e are not cured of our alcoholism" but, rather, "(w)hat we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."

I was an extremely fortunate man, however. A good friend from early sobriety reached out to me when he found out my life had crumbled beneath me due to what was most clearly a case of being "dry" rather than mentally and spiritually "sober." (Only half-jokingly, I refer to it as being a period of "stark raving sobriety.") Additionally, a man who had been fifteen years years sober and then drank, but who was then fifteen years sober once again, saw that I was truly suffering and reached out to sponsor me. Although he was even then dying of cancer, he took me through the Steps and illustrated to me how and what needed to be done if I, too, was to truly recover from, by then, "a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body."

Even more importantly, as it turned out, was another old-timer who recognized my suffering and took me once again through the 'Big Book, showing me what it was that I needed - a power greater than my own narrow, egoic "self" - and where to find it. The "how" of establishing such a relationship with "a Power greater than myself" - i.e., "how" to pray and meditate effectively - was, in turn, shown to me, albeit reluctantly at first, by a third old-timer steeped in decades of meditative practice.

It is on the all-important page 55 of the 'Big Book' that we are told where to seek and find a "God of our own understanding."

". . . (D)eep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form it is there. . . . We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis, it is only there that He may be found." (Emphasis added.)

Collectively and individually, these gentlemen showed me how to access that "unsuspected inner resource" which is discussed in the Spiritual Experience appendix to the 'Big Book.' Yet, how difficult it is to establish and maintain an effective practice of meditation and prayer, how difficult to truly practice Step Eleven.

"We are not saints," it is true. But how willing are each of us "to grow along spiritual lines"? What "lengths" are each of willing to go to? Is it, indeed, "any length." (Emphasis added.)

For myself, the question is: Am I seeking enlightenment? For the possibility of attaining an absorbed consciousness anchored in the Ground of Being is spoken of in each of the world's great spiritual traditions, whether it is called liberation, enlightenment, mystic union, moksha, nirvana, or more plainly, as Dr. Jung  phrased it "union with God."

"There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakeable foundation for life, now and then we may be granted a glimpse of that ultimate reality which is God's kingdom."

(Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 98.)

The question thus remains for each of us: Am I truly "willing to go to any lengths" and to endure the rigours of the necessary spiritual disciplines to gain relief and break the bondage of self which is the hallmark of the ordinary human condition? Remember the caution we hear so often: "half measures availed us nothing." I found it to be was so with me.

Higher Consciousness, the Perennial Philosophy, and the Divine Ground of Being

It was the writer and pioneering New Age philosopher, Aldous Huxley, who called Bill W. "the greatest social architect of the twentieth century," in recognition of the unique A.A. service structure that Bill worked so tirelessly to forge: ("Pass It On," pp. 368-369). Yet, Bill's affinity for, and friendship with, Huxley was based on their mutual dedication to exploring matters of spirituality, metaphysics, mysticism and higher consciousness. One wonders, in light of this, whether Huxley was not as much (or even moreso) impressed by the wholesale awakenings to a greater consciousness beyond the ego which were occurring among the early membership of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Like Gerald Heard, the polymath philosopher who brought Huxley and Bill together, Huxley viewed humankind's awakening to higher consciousness as an evolutionary imperative. In the same time frame in which he met Bill, Huxley wrote extensively on what he called the "perennial philosophy" underlying the world's sundry religions and wisdom traditions. In his introduction to a translation of the Bhagavad Gita by Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda (titled "Song of God"), Huxley wrote:

"At the core of the Perennial Philosophy we find four fundamental doctrines."

"First: the phenomenal world of matter and of individualized consciousness - the world of things and animals and men and even gods - is the manifestation of a Divine Ground within which all partial realities have their being, and apart from which they would be non-existent."

"Second: human beings are capable not merely of knowing about the Divine Ground by inference; they can also realize its existence by a direct intuition superior to discursive reasoning. This immediate knowledge unites the knower and the known."

"Third: man possesses a double nature, a phenomenal ego and an eternal Self, which is the inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. It is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the spirit."

"Fourth: man's life on earth has only one end and purpose: to identify himself with his eternal Self and so come to unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground."

 Reading over these points, it is easy to see why there was such an affinity between Huxley and Wilson. By dint of his remarkable spiritual awakening at Townes Hospital - an awakening that left him initially questioning his very sanity - Bill had attained (albeit for a limited time) what Huxley would call "unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground" that lies within and yet surrounds each of us: that Divine Ground in which "we live, and move, and have our being."

Bill was obviously acutely aware of the very specific and non-dualistic "unitive knowledge" at the heart of true religious/mystic/spiritual experience, an awareness confirmed both by his personal experience and from his reading of William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, which is repeatedly cited in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous. "When we became alcoholics," he wrote, "crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What," he asked, "was our choice to be?" ('Big Book,' page 53.)

In retrospect, it seems eminently clear that Bill indeed experienced God as "everything" in his flash of spiritual insight, and it was this experience alone that arrested his slide into drunken oblivion and insanity. "The thing Bill had was a perfectly clear case of satori or somate," noted his friend Tom P. "You know by the fruits. The guy goes out and starts to act like an enlightened man. No one ever went further to prove it than that man did - he led a life of total service." ("Pass It On," page 302.)

The effectiveness of such a non-dualistic unitive experience in overcoming chronic alcoholism was confirmed by Carl Jung in his later correspondence with Bill. "(The) craving for alcohol," Jung observed, "(is) on a low level the thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: union with God."

"The only right and legitimate way to such an experience," Jung pointed out, "is that it happen to you in reality and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path which leads you to higher understanding. You may be led to that goal," he observed, "by an act of grace, or through a personal and honest contact with friends, or through a higher education of the mind beyond mere rationalism."

It was Bill's good fortune (and ours) - although Jung might call it a series of synchronicities - that he was introduced to the Oxford Group's methodology and was shown by Ebby (who was remarkably sober at that time) its effectiveness in overcoming acute alcoholism. The Oxford Group's "program" (from which Bill would derive A.A.'s Twelve Steps) was clearly "a path that leads . . . to higher understanding" beyond the confines of the limited and self-conscious duality of the human ego, a path that led Bill, Dr. Bob, and now millions of other sufferers, to a "unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground."

That a path to "a higher understanding of the mind beyond mere rationality" had been established, a path that had already brought about wholesale spiritual awakenings for tens of thousands of individuals, was undoubtedly a matter of the greatest interest to non-alcoholic spiritual seekers such as Huxley and Heard. In the 1940's and 1950's, these men (and their associates) were busy exploring the various means by which individuals could move from shallow, self-conscious, ego-centricity to higher consciousness, an exploration that would lay the foundations for widespread explorations of higher consciousness that would occur in the 1960's. It was this spiritual  "discovery" more so than the development of A.A.'s traditional service structure, one suspects, that led Huxley to call Bill "the greatest social architect of the twentieth century."