“Carl Jung and Alcoholics Anonymous”
"I had to understand that I was unable to make the people see what I am after. I am practically alone. There are a few who understand this and that, but almost nobody sees the whole… I have failed in my foremost task: to open people’s eyes to the fact that man has a soul and there is a buried treasure in the field and that our religion and philosophy are in a lamentable state."
—C. G. Jung, Nov. 1960, seven months before his death
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Though he didn’t fully realize it at the time, Carl Jung played a very important role in bringing a spiritual awakening to millions. He met with a man named Roland Hazard, a hopeless alcoholic who had tried every means to stay sober — in whom was told had the kind a chronic alcoholism… that was hopeless — and [as Jung advised] ought to commit himself to an asylum. Roland asked is there no exception. Jung told him about a few cases where a spiritual experience/awakening had so radically altered an individual that he never drank again. Although Roland didn’t stay sober, he told a man named Bill Wilson about what he had learned [from Jung]. Bill Wilson and Carl Jung would subsequently correspond on several occasions.
Today, millions have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body through the spiritual program that began in 1935, when Bill Wilson carried the message [of hope] to a failed proctologist (and alcoholic) Dr. Bob Smith. That hope came in the written principles of “Alcoholics Anonymous” — recovery through spiritual experience . I considered Carl Jung to be one of my greatest spiritual benefactors.
~AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aidfellowship dedicated to abstinence based recovery from alcoholism through its spiritually inclined Twelve Step program.[1][2][3] Following its Twelve Traditions, AA and autonomous AA groups are self-supporting through the strictly voluntary donations from members only. The Traditions also establish AA as non-professional, non-denominational, and apolitical, with an avowed desire to stop drinking as its sole requirement for membership.[1][2][4]
SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous
In simplest form, the AA program operates when a recovered alcoholic passes along the story of his or her own problem drinking, describes the sobriety he or she has found in AA, and invites the newcomer to join the informal Fellowship.
The heart of the suggested program of personal recovery is contained in Twelve Steps describing the experience of the earliest members of the Society:
SOURCE: https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/about-aa/the-12-steps-of-aa
12 Steps (the term “God” is replaced with “the Divine”)
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of the Divine as we understood it to be.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to the Divine, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
We’re entirely ready to have the Divine remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked the Divine to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the Divine as we understood it, praying only for knowledge of the Divine will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
In these 12 Steps lies profound insights into the human psyche: our struggle for wholeness. What the 12 Steps reveal are the universal principles found in all wisdom traditions: honesty, hope, faith, courage, integrity, willingness, humility, love, discipline, patience/perseverance, awareness and service 🙏.
~Keith Basar
