More
about Alcohol “ISM”
You know that alcohol is only a symptom of our disease (Page 64, Alcoholics Anonymous). But did you know that this symptom—or new ones—can continue to plague us, even though we follow the suggestions in the Big Book? Many of us felt bewildered and ashamed, but the truth is simple. We suffer from alcohol “isM,” which means that our disease is a spiritual malady.
What
causes our malady?
The cause of our malady is due to harm to our spirit—our soul. This damage may be traumatic and cause “instant alcoholism” at a young age, or leave us vulnerable to our very first drink (a). Alcoholism may develop gradually as the result of constant, tiny hurts to our spirit (b). These may initially be due to stress, but later due to drinking in the absence of spiritual support or growth. Eventually we cross a threshold and a craving develops, an uncontrollable desire to “fix” our injured soul with alcohol. Suddenly we find that we can no longer control our drinking.
What
can we do about it?
Our recovery may be immediate and dramatic—the “white light” experience (c) described by Bill W. on page 63 of A.A. Comes of Age—or it may be gradual. We recover gradually by working the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. They lead us through many small and gentle soul healings (d). However, without spiritual growth we may stay in pain or even relapse. For example, we may feel good physically and stop attending meetings—and relapse over and over again (1). We may be afraid to work Steps Four and Five—and relapse (2). We may work the Steps, but not find a Higher Power we can relate to—and relapse after years of sobriety (3).
Even if we do not relapse we may find that days, weeks or years of sobriety have not resolved the issues that caused us to drink in the first place. From a spiritual point of view, our soul is still injured, even after going to meetings, getting a sponsor, praying and working the Twelve Steps.
If you
are active in your recovery, but still hurt, or have suffered a relapse, a soul
healing (e) may prevent another relapse, or relieve your deepest pain while you
work the Twelve Steps.
How
do we talk about soul injury?
Many of us have experienced traumatic events that injured a part of our soul. Drinking typically accelerates further soul damage, but it is more frequently the symptom of an earlier event. Often we can remember what happened but have no way of healing the wounded soul parts. We can sense that they are injured and frequently say, “I have a black hole inside of me.” The February 2004 issue of the our monthly magazine, the AA Grapevine, published a contribution from Michael B. of Atlanta, Georgia who wrote:
“For an agnostic like me, getting sober and
staying sober can be torturous. It can seem like my essence is being shredded
and flung to the far reaches of the cosmos, leaving only a gaping hole where my
soul, if I have one, used to be.”
Some of us have come to
believe that this is literally correct. The
primary cause of alcoholism is spiritual. Our “gaping hole” can be
healed. The only requirement for healing is that we be willing to fill that
hole with the parts of our core essence that feel lost, instead of with drugs
or alcohol.
Did
Bill W. suffer from soul injury?
In A.A. Comes of Age Bill W. writes about major traumatic soul damage:
“…life lacked only one ingredient:
romance. Then came the minister’s daughter, and in spite of my awkward
adolescence things were complete. I had romance, security, and applause.
“One morning the school principal appeared and
announced that my girl had died suddenly the night before. I dropped into a
depression that lasted for three solid years. I did not graduate from high
school because I could not accept the loss of any part of what I thought
belonged to me.”
As a suffering alcoholic, Bill W. had an instantaneous remission, a “conversion” according to William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience. Bill described his experience this way:
“Suddenly the room lit up with a great white
light. I was caught up into an ecstasy which there are no words to describe. It
seemed to me that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit
was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I was a free man. Slowly the
ecstasy subsided. I lay on the bed, but now for a time I was in another world,
a new world of consciousness.”
The Twelve Steps can be supplemented with a healing practice that gives relief similar to Bill W.’s spiritual experience, but that may not produce the “white light.” Its principles are common to all faiths, even those that do not believe in an eternal soul (Buddhism). However, every spiritual tradition has some concept of a personal essence. Only you can decide if your core essence—your soul—has been “shredded and flung to the far reaches of the cosmos.”
What
are some of the indicators of soul injury?
Are you finding it difficult to get sober or stay sober? Or after years sober does it seem as if sobriety is not enough? Do you share any of these experiences? If you answer “Yes” to one or more of them, a part of your core essence—your soul—may be hurt. But there is help.
1. Frequent or lengthy blackouts when drinking.
2. “Instant” alcoholism, especially as a very
young child between 1 and 5 years of age.
3. A sense of having a “black hole,” a
“hole in my soul” or an “empty place” inside yourself.
4. A
sense that something outside yourself is "tugging" at you, or
"wants to come back,” or an immediate compelling urge to have your
soul healed when someone tells you about it..
5. Difficulty finding and/or establishing a conscious
contact with a Higher Power (this does not mean that you must identify a Higher
Power or understand it).
6. Low self-esteem in sobriety, such as refusing to share
in meetings because of a belief that everything you have to offer is
“stupid,” or a feeling that you like yourself better drunk than
sober (this is not a craving or compulsion to drink; it is how you see
yourself).
7. Addictions in sobriety, such as sex, rage, gambling,
spending, food or work.
8. Emotional pain or depression in sobriety after years of
therapy or treatment by medical professionals, including depression that does
not respond to prescribed medication.
9. Physical symptoms of stress in sobriety, such as chronic
pain, nausea, immune system illness, bone and joint disorders, chronic fatigue,
migraines or a diagnosis of psychosomatic illness,
even when care is taken to avoid “trigger” behavior and follow
suggestions for healthy living.
10. Repeated relapses in early sobriety, or any relapse after a long period of sobriety, especially while following the suggested program of recovery: going to meetings, getting a sponsor, working The Twelve Steps, praying and meditating, and doing service work.
11. Having suffered repeated verbal or emotional abuse, or having been
the victim of any incident of physical or sexual abuse.
12. Repeated attempts at suicide, especially in sobriety.
Can
our souls be healed?
Soul injury and soul healing is described in Alcoholics Anonymous. First, on page 53, is a statement that a spiritual essence comprises the universe, “…either God is everything or else He is nothing.” Second, on page 55, is a description of where that essence can be found, “We found the Great Reality deep down within us.” If something can be found, then it may feel like it has been lost or stolen from us. Therefore, if we choose to believe that a Great Reality is everything, it follows that our souls are part of that Reality. A soul healer is a spiritual advisor who can heal our lost essence, and restore our sense of it “deep down within” us.
Soul healing is a useful
technique because it does not require a belief in God or a Higher Power. You
need only admit that part of your core essence—your spirit—might be
hurt, and be willing to accept that you can become whole again, if you have
been injured.
How
it works
Your healer—a “spiritual technician”—will make a “journey” into non-ordinary reality, another name for the world of the Spirit. While he or she does not go anywhere physically, their soul will leave their body to find your spirit and bring back what it needs to begin healing. The cartoon shows how it works. The “permission slip” lets your healer know that you are willing, too.
Has
this really helped members
of our Fellowship?
Yes.
It has been the writer’s humbling privilege to have thus far helped over 150 members of Alcoholics Anonymous heal their souls. The Traditions guide these healings: they are treated as Twelfth Step work (so no charge is made), it is done anonymously (so no names or personal histories are revealed), and every person has chosen whether or not to permit the writer to make a healing journey for them, and then decided again whether or not to accept the gift of healing that is returned to them (only the member can decide if they wish to accept the healing).
The stories presented here are anonymous composites of multiple healing journeys that have similar features. No member’s name or exact description of their experience is given, but no one of us is unique. These stories illustrate the often heart-rending origins of this spiritual disease. The results show that all of the successfully completed soul healings have been beneficial.
For example, some soul healings have led to improvements in the member’s life, such as long-desired job changes, deepened personal relationships, serenity in sobriety, or other actions that the member felt let “their insides match their outsides.” In one case, although completion of the healing was initially refused, finding and uniting the “lost” soul parts and spiritual guardians (“power animals”) provided the individual with strength to survive difficult circumstances, although they were not enough to stay sober. However, they did manage to stay alive, and a year later they accepted the healing. They have been sober ever since.
Traumatic
soul injuries: Healing childhood physical and sexual abuse
Healing: Janice[1] is in her first year of sobriety. She had accepted a physical shamanic healing earlier, and sat in as the support person for a soul healing. She wanted one after seeing its effects. On the journey for her I found a young girl, about ten years old, hiding in a burned out building in a bad neighborhood, beaten and hungry and only partially clothed. The child was a survivor and brought the essence of indomitable spirit.
Outcome: Janice’s response was painful for me. As a young child, her father forced Janice to go out in the yard, cut thorny brambles and return with them so he could whip her because she was “bad.” Janice was never told what she did that was “bad,” and spent much of her youth hiding. Janice ran away as a teenager and lived a life of further emotional abuse for years in rough neighborhoods, eventually becoming an alcoholic to ease her pain. Janice felt great peace after her healing. She found a job and self-esteem. She puts her sobriety first under all circumstances
Isolation
and blackout drinking creates a “Land of the Living Dead”
Healing: Bill had been sober for nine years when he heard another member describe their soul restoration, and wanted to know more about it. He was given the healing cartoon and returned in a week to ask for a soul healing. On the journey for him I was taken to a lonely but small range of Black Mountains in the midst of a dry, desolate plain. There, in a cup formed by black boulders, lay a young man. He was unconscious but alive. He woke up, willing to return, and brought back the essence of survival and joy in living.
Outcome: Bill had spent years hiding from the world in his garage apartment, drinking more and more frequently until he drank one gallon of whiskey every day. He blacked out often, angrily shouting at his family although he could not recall having done so later. His family had suffered as his alcoholism worsened, but his job was not affected until the last two years of his drinking. Although he had been sober for years, he said that he felt “empty inside” and that life was “dull and meaningless.” After the healing he found that his joy in life returned, even for such simple pleasures as a quiet dawn listening to the birds singing. Bill was divorced soon after getting sober, and still suffers financial difficulties, but he has told me that he is happier than he has ever been. As he says, “I will survive.”
Society
creates a childhood gender-identity crisis
Healing: Molly is a gay woman who has had trouble staying sober and getting along with her non-alcoholic partner, although she dearly loves their step-daughter, Violet. I was taken to a little girl standing on the edge of a playground, about seven years old, looking on at the other children. She wanted to play with the boys, but they rejected her because she was a girl. The girls would not play with her because she was too much of a tomboy. She received the essence of childhood.
Outcome: Molly showed me a poem about a playground that was the graveyard of her childhood. She knew she was gay, and never fit in. Molly’s relationship with her partner and her stepdaughter, Violet, has deepened. Molly spends hours playing with Violet, and often brings her to meetings, where we sit together and color with crayons. Molly occasionally relapses, but they occur less frequently, are brief and “gentle,” and do not shame her so much that she won’t “keep coming back.”. She used to stay away from meetings for months or years after each relapse.
Returning
the Spirits of the Ancestors heals cultural soul theft
Healing: Another member told Marvin of the benefits of soul healing. As is my current practice, his journey was performed without asking for background information or conducting an interview. A member who wants a soul healing has a reason, which the spirits will tell me. This journey was to the Upper World to return the spirits of Marvin’s Ancestors. He was also given a name, “Great Spirit Eagle,” and Eagle as a power animal. The spirits also directed me to give Marvin my best chanupa, a sacred pipe for which the offering of the fourth Lakota sun dancer had been given in a ceremony on my property earlier in the year. I did not want to give away my chanupa, I saw no reason to do it, but I did it anyway as a part of the soul healing.
Outcome: Marvin broke down crying. He
revealed that he is a Cherokee, on the tribal rolls. He had been told that he
could only obtain a pipe as a gift, and had despaired of ever receiving such a
sacred offering. He had despaired of having the spirits of his Ancestors look
upon him, since he lives in the Midwest and is submerged in white culture. Two
weeks later Marvin received a second gift, an Eagle feather from a Cherokee
shaman who “knew it was now time.” Marvin prays with the chanupa frequently and regularly practices sweat lodge
ceremony as a part of his Eleventh step in Alcoholics Anonymous, “Sought
through prayer and meditation to establish a conscious contact with God as
we understood him…”
Soul
“theft”: Journey to the Land of the Dead to retrieve a
daughter’s soul
Healing: Several months after Claire’s mother died, she became distraught and felt “a black hole” inside. I was taken to her deceased mother in the Land of the Dead. She had Claire’s soul, and had kept it after her death to protect her daughter. I explained to her that Claire has been sober for 15 years and was doing well. She was afraid for Claire because her father abused her. Although her father had died years ago, her mother felt the need to protect her. After showing her Claire as an adult, and letting her see that with her soul she would be safe, her mother gladly gave Claire’s soul back, and passed into the Light, finding peace. The essence returned to Claire was safety and self-worth.
Outcome: Claire’s very first memory in her life was as a seven year-old whose father was beating her while her mother begged him to leave Claire alone. Her mother always did her best to protect her, eventually divorcing Claire’s abusive father. Once the healing was completed, Claire’s distress vanished. Her grief for her mother is subsiding without a need or desire to drink. Claire is now deepening her relationship with her own daughter, without trying to control her.
Refusal
of healing: Traumatic childhood soul injuries lead to a lack of trust
Healing: Harold is an alcoholic-addict who had been clean and sober for over one year before beginning a series of relapses that led to a downward spiral in his health and finances. He spoke repeatedly of his desire to stay sober, but lamented that his inability to trust others resulted in self-sabotaging behavior with his sponsors. On a journey for him four soul parts were found, all in a muddy “Cave of Lost Children” in a low-lying area of non-ordinary reality. One part had been sexually abused by his father, another beaten by a grandfather, a third tormented by an older cousin, and the last abandoned by his mother. These soul parts were willing to come back when it was explained that they might supply the trust Harold needed to stay sober. They brought trust in himself and strength to deal with others.
Outcome: Harold refused to complete his soul healing, explaining to me over the telephone that he was “chickening out.” I journeyed to release Harold’s soul parts. Accompanied by his two power animals, and clothed in Neolithic-looking fur breechcloths, they set out into The Bright Lands of the future. The last one in line turned and waved to me, then they were gone. Harold disappeared for two months. I saw him once after that, and have been told that he is still alive, living in the woods using stolen drugs. As long as he is not dead, there is hope.
Postscript,
September 2004: Harold and his “tribe”
Harold returned in early September, clean and sober, and asked if it was too late to complete his soul healing. No, it was not. It never is if we still breathe. His soul parts, the “tribe” of young boys that walked into the Light last year, kept him alive through the winter while he stole drugs and slept in the woods. I explained that his soul had been located, regained its strength when re-assembled, and afterwards stayed near him and protected him.
I journeyed that night to find the boys. With astonishing speed, a vision formed out of the Light in non-ordinary reality. It was of a long slope down to a village of bark teepees—wickiups, they are called—where many people walked back and forth. As I approached they recognized me, and called out to each other that I had arrived. My friend’s four soul parts, now four young men, were among them. They welcomed me warmly. Was I welcomed because I was a healer, a person to be admired and respected, the great shaman who had rescued these young men?
No.
I was welcomed because I was Harold’s friend, welcomed because he had given his permission to visit his village, and, finally, welcomed because these were my ancestors also. My people are the Cherokee, originally dwellers in the eastern woods. Harold and his “tribe” had taken me home, where my ancestors greeted me for the first time. I found it difficult to believe that I could be related to this man, this member. It hurt my pride. In my arrogance I believed that this alcoholic-addict had no power to heal me; that I had no hurt for him to heal; that I was the only one of us who could perform a healing, and that he was the only one who would be healed.
I was wrong. After we completed his soul healing, and after we had exchanged strong, warm, brotherly hugs, I asked if he was, perhaps, Native American? I was still not ready to believe, so the Spirits demanded that I ask. Yes. His great-grandmother was a Cherokee. So was mine. Harold is one of my tribe. We have grown from the same roots.
Mitakuye Oyasin. In English, “We are all related.” We
are all the children of this earth. We are all members of a tribe of many
peoples. Let us heal each other. Let us heal our home. Together.