In 1961 Bill W., one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, wrote a letter to the famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in which he thanked him for helping spark the fire that was to become Alcoholics Anonymous.
Carl Jung had worked with a hopeless alcoholic named Rowland H. According to Carl Jung, Rowland’s only chance to recover from his alcoholism was a “spiritual or religious experience – in short, a genuine conversion.”
Jung went on to say that this type of spiritual experience had been happening to alcoholics for centuries, but that he did not know how to produce such a spiritual experience through the use of psychological methods.
Jung wrote back and said that Rowland’s alcoholism was “the equivalent, on a low level, of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God.” Jung’s letter went on to say that, “…alcohol in Latin is spiritus” and that the same Latin word is used for “the highest religious experience as well as the most depraving poison.
The helpful formula therefore is: “Spiritus contra spiritum” or “Spirit against spirit.”
Step 1 Introduction
“Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.” ― Carl Gustav Jung
Step 2
“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.” ― Carl Gustav Jung
Step 3
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” ― C.G. Jung
Step 4
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” ― Carl Gustav Jung
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” ― Carl Gustav Jung
Step 5
“There’s no coming to consciousness without pain.” ― Carl Gustav Jung
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” ― Carl Gustav Jung
Step 6 & 7
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.” ― Carl Gustav Jung
Steps 8 & 9
“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” ― Carl Gustav Jung
“We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.” ― Carl Gustav Jung
Step 10
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” ― Carl
Gustav Jung
Step 11
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” ― C.G. Jung“
Sponsorship: Step 12
“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” ― Carl
Gustav Jung
A Vision for You
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” ― Carl Gustav Jung