AA meetings
M. Scott Peck and AA
Morgan Scott Peck (1936 – 2005) was an American psychiatrist and prolific best-selling author. He wrote The Road Less Travelled, published in 1978. His book has become very popular among AA members. Peck also wrote extensively about the need to build community if humanity were to heal from division and grow spiritually. He explores his view on community building in The Different Drum.
I mention Scott Peck in a blog about AA meetings because he greatly respected and admired AA. He saw it as a powerful agent of psychological healing and spiritual growth. He believed AA made this possible by building community and creating AA groups. Men and women, broken by alcoholism and frequently isolated and marginalized in society, support each other to stay sober and recreate their lives.
“Peck cites AA as “the most successful community in the nation and perhaps the world” and traces the origins of the modern community movement to its founding in 1935.
Alcoholics Anonymous has virtually no organization – no dues, budgets or buildings – “yet no other phenomenon has had such an impact for good in the nation,” Peck says.
The “true communities” Peck describes are made up of people in extraordinarily committed, long- or short-term relationships to promote their own and each other’s spiritual growth and, perhaps, causes such as peace or fighting addictions.”
Roanoke Times – Copyright © 1995
As an established and respected psychiatrist, Scott Peck saw the immense value of the AA group. Members are committed to their meetings, where they share their experience, strength, and hope regarding recovery from alcoholism. Peck made a remarkable statement about AA. Forming these groups could offer the world a blueprint for healing humanity’s divisions and conflicts. He always emphasized the group’s power.
“Scott Peck considered the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous one of the top two events of the 20th century. The other was World War II.”
onedayatatime.com
Coming in out of the cold
By the time they arrive in AA, many alcoholics have withdrawn from the human family. They have drank themselves into a state of a poignant inner loneliness. For Alcoholics, this is often true even if family and friends surround them. Then there are the low-bottom cases. They invariably end up alienated from others and survive on the very margins of society.
For all of us who have experienced the loneliness of alcoholism, whether it is at a high society party or homeless on a park bench, AA meetings have a special place in our hearts. The group binds us together. Our bond is our shared suffering. We learn to talk about our wounds and discover we begin to get well by sharing our vulnerability.
The AA meeting becomes the healing balm that gradually draws us out of the isolation and loneliness of the disease. Symbolically, we gather together in front of the warm hearth of an AA meeting. We are people who have, sometimes literally, sometimes emotionally, come in from the cold.
Carl Jung’s Letter to Bill Wilson
Carl Jung (26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist. He was a pioneering evolutionary theorist who founded the school of analytical psychology and was also a great friend of AA.
Chapter two of the AA Big Book describes an encounter between Carl Jung and an early AA member called Roland H. Being careful not to mention the “God” word, Jung told Roland H that, in his view, his only hope of salvation was through what he called a “vital spiritual experience.” (BB “There is a solution” p.27) Jung’s influence on AA was profound. It was instrumental in the idea that alcoholics can only truly recover by embracing spiritual principles.
“The ideas of both Jung and James, on topics including hopelessness, self-surrender, and spiritual experiences, were influential in the development and founding of the international altruistic, self-help movement Alcoholics Anonymous on June 10, 1935, in Akron, Ohio,”
Wikipedia
In my mind, Jung was an accomplished psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and modern-day mystic. He understood the human psyche like few do.
Bill Wilson, the co-founder of AA, was so grateful to Carl Jung that on January 23rd, 1961, Bill wrote to him to express his gratitude and heartfelt affection for influencing the spiritual values embraced by the early fellowship.
“The protective wall of human community”
Carl Jung wasted no time in responding to Bill’s letter. He wrote back to Bill on 30th January 1961. His letter is fascinating indeed. The correspondence between the two men had an inspirational effect on me. I discovered it after being in the fellowship for about five years. I mention Dr. Jung in this blog about AA meetings because he believed that without the “protective wall of human community” and through the isolation of active alcoholism, the alcoholic stands condemned. In his letter to Bill, Jung uses the word perdition. I believe that Jung used the word “perdition” symbolically. The dictionary meaning of this word is eternal damnation.
Without becoming concerned about the religious connotations associated with the idea of eternal damnation, most alcoholics shudder to think about the fate that may befall them at the prospect of drinking themselves into oblivion. As an alcoholic who has known the darkness of active alcoholism, I can’t imagine a worse fate than a gradual and lingering alcoholic death. I can’t think of a better word than “perdition” that comes close to describing the gradual, dark, and lonely descent into end-stage alcoholism.
Unquestionably, chronic alcoholism banishes us from “the protective wall of human community.” AA groups become the “life-preservers” (12&12 Step One p. 22) through which alcoholics can save themselves. The unity of the AA group becomes a power greater than the lone alcoholic. For many of us who don’t believe in a monotheistic God, the therapeutic power of the group is sufficient to stop drinking.
90 meetings in 90 days
The first suggestion newcomers receive is to do 90 meetings in 90 days. It is immensely effective and practical to break the cycle of addiction. Many psychologists agree that the way to replace an old habit (Drinking) is to replace it with a new one (Meetings). They discovered that to be successful, this process can take up to 90 days.
Another powerful reason for the 90 in 90 suggestion concerns the isolation of the illness. Drinking separates alcoholics from others. They become cut off and condemned to a psychological prison of their own making. With this in mind, AA meetings are a powerful force for good. Gradually, they resocialize and reintegrate the alcoholic back into the human family. In a very tangible way, the AA meeting is comparable to a lifeboat. We get pulled into the boat by the other survivors and saved from drowning.
In fellowship
Andy F
