Spirituality is the Foundation for Addiction Recovery

Having been in AA since 1976, I have heard a lot of people comment on the spiritual “part” of AA. They generally say that they have a “problem” with the spiritual part. I always want to ask which part is the spiritual part. I believe that all 12 steps are spiritual and that we need a power greater than ourselves to help us to accept our need for change and growth.

Many of Bill Wilson’s (the co-founder of AA) early influences were by people who believed spirituality to be the foundation. Two of those people were Carl Jung and William James. I have included the thoughts of these two men below.

William James is considered the founder of psychology.

These articles about William James and AA show the influence James had on helping to mold the early addiction recovery ideas that Bill Wilson had.

The Religious Roots of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps

William James and Alcoholics Anonymous

History of Alcoholics Anonymous

Big Book Theology: “We Agnostics” and William James

The  Varieties of Religious Experience

Bill Wilson’s Letter to Dr. Carl Jung, Jan. 23, 1961

Spirituality as a cure for alcoholism–the following three paragraphs are included from Wikipedia and contain other links in the article:

“Jung recommended spirituality as a cure for alcoholism and he is considered to have had an indirect role in establishing Alcoholics Anonymous.^[57] Jung once treated an American patient (Rowland Hazard III), suffering from chronic alcoholism. After working with the patient for some time and achieving no significant progress, Jung told the man that his alcoholic condition was near to hopeless, save only the possibility of a spiritual experience. Jung noted that occasionally such experiences had been known to reform alcoholics where all else had failed.”

“Rowland took Jung’s advice seriously and set about seeking a personal spiritual experience. He returned home to the United States and joined a Christian evangelical Re-Armament movement known as the Oxford Group. He also told other alcoholics what Jung had told him about the importance of a spiritual experience. One of the alcoholics he brought into the Oxford Group was Ebby Thacher, a long-time friend and drinking buddy of Bill Wilson, later co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Thacher told Wilson about the Oxford Group, and through them Wilson became aware of Hazard’s experience with Jung. The influence of Jung thus indirectly found its way into the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous, the original twelve-step program, and from there into the whole twelve-step recovery movement, although AA as a whole is not Jungian and Jung had no role in the formation of that approach or the twelve steps.”

“The above claims are documented in the letters of Jung and Bill W., excerpts of which can be found in Pass It On, published by Alcoholics Anonymous.^[58] Although the detail of this story is disputed by some historians, Jung himself made reference to its substance — including the Oxford Group participation of the individual in question — in a talk that was issued privately in 1954 as a transcript from shorthand taken by an attender (Jung reportedly approved the transcript), later recorded in Volume 18 of his Collected Works, The Symbolic Life (“For instance, when a member of the Oxford Group comes to me in order to get treatment, I say, ‘You are in the Oxford Group; so long as you are there, you settle your affair with the Oxford Group. I can’t do it better than Jesus.’” Jung goes on to state that he has seen similar cures among Roman Catholics.^[59])”

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