Spiritus Contra Spiritum

Last Sunday Georgia National Public Radio ran a feature on The Spirituality of Addition and Recovery  on Matters of Faith. It was a wonderful feature covering more than Alcoholics Anonymous.

I believe that addiction is a far larger subject than drugs and alcohol. Upon achieving sobriety most folks become acutely aware of the fact that due to our suffering and compulsions we can become addicted to people, places and things - even processes and organizations. Hell, I have even known people addicted to AA, and I am surely addicted to NPR. There are love addicts, relationship addicts, sex addicts, religious/church addicts, food addicts, drama addicts, gambling addicts, shopping addicts, control addicts - you name it. You are probably looking at an addiction process when anything is done compulsively to ease pain when it destroys one's life and integrity, narrows one's options and is accomplished amidst lies and denial. Frightful, huh? This would include a great many activities not only tolerated, but celebrated, by society. In fact, work addiction is something to brag about, and there are relationship experts who believe that the "falling in love" relationship model in America is, in fact, addictive.

Alcoholics Anonymous has become the 12 Step model for any addiction you can imagine. And its bottom line is a spiritual approach. Not church. Not liturgy. Only a higher power.

Bill Wilson, the founder of AA, once called AA "utter simplicity which encases a complete mystery."

A 1961 letter to Bill from Swiss psychologist Jung was introduced in the NPR feature. Jung compared the addiction of a particular patient as a craving for alcohol that was "the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, the union with God." In a footnote Jung quoted Psalm 42:1, "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." Surprisingly Jung said "I am strongly convinced that the evil principle prevailing in this world, leads the unrecognized spiritual need into perdition, if it is not counteracted either by a real religious insight or by the protective wall of human community. An ordinary man, not protected by an action from above and isolated in society cannot resist the power of evil, which is called very aptly the Devil. But the use of such words arouse so many mistakes that one can only keep aloof from them as much as possible."

Jung coined a cool term to describe the use of the spiritual to fight alcohol addiction - spiritus contra spiritum - spirits against spirit:

"You see, Alcohol in Latin is "spiritus" and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritum."