In 1930 a member of the Oxford Group and an alcoholic, Roland Hazzard, visited on more than one occasion with the noted psychiatrist Dr. Carl Jung. After Roland failed to cease drinking multiple times Dr. Jung gave to him the solution for alcoholism -- a vital spiritual experience. Spiritual defined as "of or pertaining to God" and vital as "life giving". We have to give life to our experience with God. This is accomplished by surrendering our nature to the will of God.
During what became a historic visit Dr Jung said to Roland, "You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover where the state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you." Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang. He said to the doctor, "Is there no exception?" "Yes," replied the doctor, "there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences."
I recant these passages from the chapter There Is A Solution in the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous to make clear that we do know there is a solution to our alcoholism and that solution is indeed a vital spiritual experience. THE GENESIS of that life-giving experience is God. May you find him now.
If you are alcoholic or suffer from the disease of addiction and you wish to recover from the seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, surrender your will to the will of God and you will live in this solution to your alcoholism.
Written by Armand
In the program of recovery, I learned that, for much of my life, I was living with an unawakened spirit. Alcohol was a fix for that ultimate dilemma - a temporary solution leading to a devastating and potentially fatal problem. AA helped me to cease the daily self-onslaught of alcohol consumption. But it was the Big Book passages referenced in this post that opened me to the notion of a vital spiritual experience. I believe that, as Bill Wilson suggested, this phenomena is the solution to all my problems. More importantly, it is the solution to the presence of wholeness of me through The Power Within me. It has been only by integrating all Twelve Steps into my life that I found my life. And my purpose - to give it all away.
ReplyDeleteHere, a brief chronology of Roland Hazard’s quest for a cure is vitally important..
ReplyDeleteHe met with Jung prior to ever joining the Oxford Group and although Dr. Jung, a keen observer of human
behavior, had witnessed transformation of the human psyche through a ”vital spiritual experience” his writings make clear it was an experience he never personally experienced. Jung was a pantheist and
specifically identified individual human life with the universe as a whole and did not recognize a distinct personal God. It is clear that Roland now understanding the problem struck out t
o obtain the “vital spiritual experience” prescribed by Jung and be spiritually reborn.
This quest brought him to the doorway of the Oxford Group which advocated four practices:
1. The sharing of our sins and temptations with another Christian life given to God.
2. Surrender our life past, present and future, into God's keeping and direction.
3. Restitution to all whom we have wronged directly or indirectly.
4. Listening for God's guidance, and carrying it out.
Sources also tell us "The development of Alcoholics Anonymous, with its origins in the Oxford Groups, has a very distinct Judeo-Christian heritage. Indeed, the "Oxford Groups" were regarded as practicing first century Christianity. But the wisdom of the founding fathers in AA was shown when they penned the Third Step, "We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him." They understood the pervasive shame of being alcoholic, and they resented anyone else telling them they were sinners. They were quite capable of self-condemnation all by themselves, they didn't need any help from the imagined holier-than-thou hypocrites they had seen in the bars themselves.” All who still suffer the ravages of any substance abuse, sorely need a God of love and mercy to greet us when we eventually stagger into the rooms..
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