Day 11 - Spiritus Contra Spiritum

From Gods In Everyman by Jean Bolen

Communion with God can be a major unconscious motivation for drinking that leads to alcoholism. Bill W., cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, had an exchange of correspondence with Jung that illuminates this connection between alcoholism and spirituality. Bill W. wrote to tell him of the importance of a conversation that Jung had had in the 1930s with Rowland H. that had played a significant role in the founding of AA (Rowland H. was an alcoholic and former patient of Jung's whom Jung in this conversation told that he could not help.)

"When he (Rowland H.) then asked you if there was any other hope, you told him that there might be, provided he could become the subject of a spiritual or religious experience."

(Taking Jung's words to heart, Rowland H. then sought and found the spiritual experience that did help him.)

Jung replied, "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."

"You see," Jung wrote, "'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."

The phrase spiritus contra spiritum translates into the principle of using spiritual communion against the addiction of alcoholic spirits; substituting God (in whatever form that has meaning for that individual) for alcohol. When the use of alcohol or any other substance is motivated by Dionysus, a man or woman is seeking spiritual communion through these means; when this is the case, it's no wonder that a relationship with God helps bring about sobriety.