Archetypical Alcoholic

In 1987 I came to believe I had alcoholism, my deep-seated twisted thinking now had a name and a cause, but it also had a solution. William James in his book The Varieties of Religious Experiences says that when one has a Mystical experience then what was heretofore unbelievable suddenly becomes apparent and operational to an individual.  (James, 1902) This follows what AA’s 12 step program of recovery espouses as well, in conversations with Carl Jung, AA’s co-founder Bill Wilson was told by Dr. Jung that he often tried to guide alcoholic patients to a form of religious self-discovery akin to what Bill W. describes in the book Alcoholics Anonymous as his “white-light” experience. In a letter to Bill Wilson (Jung, 1961) Dr. Jung said in reference to a former alcoholic patient of his that “His craving for alcohol was the equivalent, on a low level, of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God*”. Dr. Jung further enhanced his reference to God by saying, “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.”  When I first encountered AA I was swept up by the release of a lifetime of frustration and at once understood that I could be forgiven as well as forgive, and that I was a child of God and had a right to be here. I saw that I could make amends for harms done and that I would be able to live a good life free from the obsessions I had been a prisoner of for as long as I remembered. I had always felt different, alone and misunderstood. I had a name for that now, alcoholism. It fit perfectly. I got involved in AA and followed its precepts willingly and gladly. I did so for many years, but eventually my old thinking crept back in gradually and I sought out sordid places and companions to feed my deeper lusts and hid my desires lest they become known again. I left my wife before she discovered my indiscretions and soon was using drugs heavily again as well as indulging my lower nature with my new yet old obsessions. I did this for almost an entire year. Finally some very dear friends pulled me back from the brink of destruction and I once again recovered. I pieced together my life and rejoined AA with renewed vigor. I tried my best to set right my wrongs against my family and we achieved a livable arrangement, with a divorce and shared custody. Years went by unfettered by my old desires. I soon found myself facing a decision to use again, I had failed to enlarge my spiritual life or gain any new understandings of the lower nature of my desires and how they can manifest in my life and once again gain control. After another year of lying to everyone I knew and stealing drugs from one of my best friends I finally admitted my defeat again and set about to regain my lost passion for life and recovery. It was very slow going; I had broken so many promises to myself and others that I doubted my every thought. I had broken my own heart and those of others who had trusted me so many times that I was beginning to think that I was beyond the usual scope of AA recovery. As Joseph Campbell says in The Power of Myth “Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you’ve got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can’t. You don’t have to go far off the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience – that is the hero’s deed”. (Campbell, 1988) I am almost 4 years into this recovery experience and found a lot of my former beliefs about God and spirituality were like trying to put on old pants that no longer fit or are even of a style I liked. I felt uneasy about examining them because it was comfortable and simple to just parrot the party line as I had always done in the past. As I grew in my education I was introduced to different voices and different perceptions that started me looking for a new way to approach a conception of a power greater than myself, which AA emphatically asserts is so necessary for the program to work, and I believe as well. I heard an AA historian quote Dr. Jung’s letter to Bill W at a convention I attended, but this time the words “…higher education of the mind beyond the confines of mere rationalism” stood out like a Hare Krishna at a Baptist revival.  In his book The Imprisoned Splendor Raynor Johnson says, “The insights of mystical experience cannot be commanded, but it would seem that where the mind can be brought into a state of poised stillness, the deeper self is able, and often willing, to reveal itself in varying measure”. (Johnson, 1953) I found that a stilled mind can indeed reveal much to an eager soul. Through awkward ventures into mindfulness and meditation I have found some solace and insight I have not known before. This life is fluid and dynamic, it is not static or stationary, it ebbs and flows with a rhythm that one only needs to match the beat of in order to find a measure of peace and stability with. My archetypes have less power than they once had but I do not underestimate the possibility that they can slip back into my life with the ease of an attractive old girlfriend who shows up on your doorstep drunk some lonely night wanting to score. (Green Day Self-Esteem, 1994) When I took a Buzzfeed quiz on “What is your Jungian Archetype” I got “The Child”…I like that. I’ll end with a quote from one of my favorite people...”It seems to me that the less I think I know, the more there is that is available for me to learn” (Clapper, 2015).