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Hymns: When our Heart is in a Holy Place, #1008, Singing the Journey.
There’s a River Flowing in my Soul, #1007, Singing the Journey
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is addiction? Where does it come from? What do we know about it? What
has your experience been with it? How do you end it? These and many
other questions pull at our coat sleeves as we work to understand what
is, perhaps, the single most powerful interpersonal dynamic in western
society. I will share observations and experience with you, having
worked with addictions first, as a person recovering from one, and
second, as a professional counselor and consultant working with the
human realities of addiction in a person, in families, and in society as
a whole. My “answers” will be tentative and imperfect. These 35 years of
study has convinced me mostly that we still little understand human
nature in general, and addiction in particular.
Let’s begin at a good UU beginning, a definition. Wikipedia defines
addiction as a “mental or physical disorder precipitated by a
combination of genetic, biological/pharmacological and social factors.
Addiction is characterized by the repeated use of substances or
behaviors despite clear evidence of morbidity secondary to such use” In
other words, if habitual use of the substance or practice of the
behavior causes repeated life problems, and despite the evidence the
person is not able to stop practicing the behavior, it is considered an
addiction. Or as we said in the field at the time, “if it looks like a
duck, and flys like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably a
duck.” Someone who acts addictively is an addict.
Let me clarify what I mean when I describe addictions. I will be taking
a broad view of what addictions are, one I believe to be more accurate
in describing what truly happens in our lives. I am referring to
addictions to the drug ethanol, the form found in alcoholic beverages,
drugs….licit, legal ones like prescription drugs or nicotine, or
illicit, illegal in our society, including marijuana, cocaine, etc.
Food, Gambling, Work, and Sex. The treatment for some of these, when
they become addictions is abstinence. Others, obviously, are not. One
cannot abstain from food and live, for example. One cannot usually
abstain from work and live well.
So, what are we actually seeking by drinking to the point of being
impaired and acting foolishly or dangerously, or using marijuana or
cocaine to bring a state of mellow or high? What are we needing when we
take a drug to let go of the world every night? What drives us to gamble
to the point of losing life savings and beloved families? How can food,
the nurturer of us all, be turned into a destructive relationship? And
how can we work to such a degree that our own needs and everyone’s
around us are denied. And finally, what drives us to act out sexually in
ways that may lose families, careers, and self respect?
I would submit to you that what meaningful answers we have in response
to those questions are spiritual ones.
I believe that addiction is a symptom of a hunger for meaning in life.
Or said oppositely, that it is indicative of the deep emptiness in the
person who is using or acting out.
By far the most successful treatment models for addiction are the
various twelve step programs that have evolved to support those so
entwined. All of those programs evolved from Alcoholics Anonymous and
include Overeaters Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous,
as well as Love and Sex Addicts Anonymous. There is not, at present, a
similar group to treat work addiction, probably because the behavior of
working long hours, attending to all with perfectionism, and acting
obsessively is seen as a virtue in our society rather than a problem.
For background to my statement that addiction is a symptom for spiritual
emptiness, I would like to take you back to the history of the parent
group, AA, and its early, 1930’s beginnings.
AA was started by a stockbroker from NYC named Bill Wilson, and a
physician from Columbus, OH named Bob Smith. Bill was made aware of the
hopelessness of his alcoholic plight by an insightful doctor who had
treated him many times. Bill was a chronic late stage alcoholic who had
been in and out of treatment for years. He had given up and was ready to
die. Then an old drinking buddy from his Vermont past showed up, one who
had been in even worse shape than he. Ebby looked great. He was sober
and happy. He told Bill that he had gone to the Oxford group, a
Christian group with English roots who believed that to recover from any
form of dissatisfaction or disease you needed to have a spiritual
experience at depth. A collapse of our ego centered nature. And be
supported by peers, others who had taken this path. Bill was fascinated.
He saw a glimmer of hope. To make a 25 years long story short, Bill got
sober, stayed sober for the rest of his life, and helped start AA. He
became its chief philosopher and writer. In later years he put together
the whole story about how his friend Ebby had gotten to him. It seems
that Ebby had been invited to attend his first Oxford Group meeting by a
man named Roland, who came to those groups after being a patient of Dr.
Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychiatrist and thinker who gave us the
concept of archetypes, the deep human river of consciousness that is
carried forward in the unconscious from generation to generation. Jung,
sadly, convinced Roland that his condition was almost hopeless and that
his only real hope was a true religious conversion. Since Roland, like
Ebby and Bill, was an agnostic who had little belief in such things, he
felt even more hopeless of ever achieving that change at depth. When he
came back to the US, he joined the Oxford Group, brought Ebby there, and
Ebby brought Bill.
All this story is to prepare you for an excerpt of correspondence that
transpired many years later, a few months before his death, between Dr.
Jung, and Bill Wilson.
Bill wrote to Dr. Jung at a time when AA, the resulting organization
that adopted the major tenets of the Oxford Group and then took off, had
over 300,000 members. He thanked Jung for his role in helping AA’s
beginnings, describing the whole series of “coincidences” which happened
( what Jung calls synchronicity) starting with his relationship with
Roland. In his return letter, Jung said some remarkable things. I
believe his insights go to the heart of the nature of addiction, not
just to alcohol, but to all we have described up to this point. Let me
share some of it with you.
In the first part of the letter he says that he has to be very careful
about what he says because in the past he has “been misunderstood in
every possible way.” He continued, “but what I really thought about was
the result of knowing many men of Roland’s kind. His craving for alcohol
was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being
for wholeness, expressed in mediaeval language: the union with God. ("As
the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee,
O God." ( Psalm 42,1)) How could one formulate such an insight in a
language that is not misunderstood in our days? The only right and
legitimate way to such an experience is, that it happens to you in
reality and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path, which
leads you to higher understanding. You might be led to that goal by an
act of grace or through a personal and honest contact with friends, or
through a higher education of the mind beyond the confines of mere
rationalism. I see from your letter that Roland H. has chosen the second
way, which was, under the circumstances, obviously the best one.
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 person, not protected by an action
from above and isolated in society cannot resist the power or evil. But
the use of such words as evil arouse so many mistakes that one can only
keep aloof from them as much as possible.
These are the reasons why I could not give a full and sufficient
explanation to Roland H. but I am risking it with you because I conclude
from your very decent and honest letter, that you have acquired a point
of view above the misleading platitudes, one usually hears about
alcoholism.
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: spirituus contra spiritum.”
Thus ended Jung’s letter. His latin formula means, in essence, to
utilize spiritual communion against the spirits of alcohol, to
substitute God, in whatever form she/he appears, in place of alcohol.
Now, this is not Ted Haggard or some other conservative Christian
minister saying this. It is one of the two or three dozen greatest
thinkers of the 20th Century at the height of his wisdom. To me, it is a
profound insight into the nature of human nature, and of addiction. And,
it is a challenging truth to regularly hold in clear focus. Particularly
for Unitarian-Universalists with all our struggle about the existence
and role of God and spirit.
Now, how does this translate to the other addictions? I believe very
directly. The only difference that I can discern lies in the details.
Another metaphor for addiction is emptiness. It is most obvious with a
food addiction. I feel empty and eat to fill the emptiness.
Where does the emptiness come from? From so many sources. The loss of
the capacity to grow into one’s true self because of the limitations
caused by a culture and/or a family that is frightened by freedom.
The psychic and emotional wounds inflicted on a child and adolescent by
a wounded parent, unable to nurture and protect. Abusive and angry or
distant and self obsessed, such parenting leaves a legacy of deep
emptiness.
The existential challenge of life itself with its daily violence and
devastating wars, and the inhumanity of genocide. The slow death of
Mother Earth.
The very act of living a life in which one must die, no exceptions.
There is no scarcity of cause.
Many develop successful strategies to deal with this body/ mind/
emotion/ spirit pounding that life gives us. We develop rewarding
relationships, enter meaningful work, practice regular, pleasurable
recreational activities, and find loving connection with others and,
perhaps, with God. They are filled up. The emptiness which creates
craving and desire to be filled up is non-existent or irregular. It is
manageable.
But as we talked about with our discussion on Buddhism, suffering lies
within the desire. The craving for life to be more, to be better than it
is. The simple desire to have the emptiness filled. And not have the
emotional or spiritual tools to effectively fill it. Enter addiction.
When the desire to see and feel the world differently becomes intent
enough, the search begins, fed by emptiness. What will fill me? For
awhile, of course, the drink or drug or overeating or gambling or an
affair or 20 hour work days fill us up, depending on our make-up. We do
not become addicted to something that is not deeply pleasurable at some
level at some times. Then, as it becomes more deeply engrained in our
consciousness, and/or our chemical bodies, the obsession to get enough,
to have more, to get the right stuff, grows and edges into the center of
our concerns. The thought of giving it up, as life problems begin to
grow as a result of its use, creates fear and resistance.
This is the moment of truth for an addict. Once an addiction begins, it
will grow. Such is the nature of addiction. Can I stop now, before it
causes life changing problems, just based on insight, or do I have to
keep the illusion wrapped tight around me that it is not interfering
with the quality of my life until finally the severity of the resulting
life problems forcefully knocks down the door and sends families and
friends, jobs and careers, stability and joy fleeing.
In twelve step programs they talk about “filling the God hole.” Filling
up that place where God or spirit normally dwell within us, as a part of
us. The specific place that is now empty in the addict. In order to
recover from addiction, to “be restored to sanity,” the ego position of
“I can do it myself, I need no one” must be surrendered enough to allow
spirit in. In the twelve step world Spirit is thought of as humble,
compassionate, caring, and open minded. Ego is “self will run riot.”
When God can be invited to fill the emptiness, truly invited, the
addiction is healed.
(Please understand that I understand that in this sanctuary there are as
many versions of God or Non-God as there are people in the room. The
primary requirement here is that there is a surrender to a “higher
power” of some description, which can very well be the higher power of a
caring group, as well as a traditional version of God or Goddess.)
Surrender is the key. I can no longer manage, I surrender. I am willing
to do whatever is necessary to heal. Show me the way. Recovery follows.
The spiritual thirst for wholeness that Jung described has now been
achieved. The union with God takes place. Thus, spiritus contra spiritum
has been fulfilled.
There are many other lenses through which one may view addiction. Each
has their strengths and weaknesses. Today, I wanted to give you my lens,
my way of seeing addiction, that has come from these years of
reflection.
I know that some of you are struggling with an addiction right now. I
know that others of you are in some pain over the addiction of a family
member or friend. Such is the prevalence in our culture. My hope and
prayer is that healing and recovery may become a reality for all who are
suffering. My hope and prayer is that your God hole gets deeply filled
by whatever version of God, of spirit, which sustains and nurtures you.
As a famous Hindu saint said, “you cannot heal a hole in the heart with
earthly pleasures” despite our great desire for it to be true.
It takes courage to take the leap from addiction to healing. May those
of you who must, take that leap now.
Amen.
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