{"id":5870523,"date":"2011-03-28T05:00:39","date_gmt":"2011-03-28T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.californiapsychics.com\/?p=5870523"},"modified":"2016-05-18T12:51:27","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T19:51:27","slug":"addiction-a-call-to-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.californiapsychics.com\/blog\/mind-body-spirit\/addiction-a-call-to-spirituality.html","title":{"rendered":"Addiction: A Call to Spirituality"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201ccraving for alcohol\u201d is \u201cthe equivalent\u2026 of a spiritual thirst,\u201d the desire for a \u201cunion with God.\u201d <\/a><\/strong>So wrote Carl Jung in a letter to A.A.\u2019s co-founder, Bill Wilson.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, at first glance, one would not ordinarily cast the words alcoholic and spiritual into the same sentence or even the same paragraph. However, when looking at the word \u201cspirits,\u201d the Latin-based synonym for alcohol it\u2019s not such an unlikely coupling after all.<\/p>\n

And that was the essence of what Jung was saying: that the spirit is really what one is seeking in the bottle, albeit in the form of inebriated folly. And it is this idea which is at the core of A.A.\u2019s twelve steps where a God of one\u2019s own<\/a><\/strong> understanding is repeatedly called forth as the primary power able to stop alcoholism in its tracks.<\/p>\n

It does, of course, make sense that, like their 1960s descendants, who rode the pathways of psychedelic experience towards ostensible enlightenment, those with a fondness for the drink are also, in their own way, searching for something beyond the realm of the ordinary, looking to be catapulted into the cosmic, the transcendent, the realm of the spirit, a phrase which appears repeatedly throughout A.A.\u2019s literature.<\/p>\n

However, that was the 1930s, and great strides have since been made in the fields of science, psychology and spirituality. So, the question is, has this notion of prescribing a spiritual solution for a seemingly incurable addiction proven successful?<\/p>\n

The answer is absolutely: not only have the twelve steps cured millions of alcoholics, but addicts of other types as well. Also, other religious and spiritual paths now stand solidly behind this idea that addiction is, in fact, a call to something spiritual and that the spiritual is, therefore, the cure.<\/p>\n

In his recently published book, God of Our Understanding: Jewish Spirituality and Recovery from Addiction<\/em>, Rabbi Shais Taub asserts, in the context of Judaism, that addiction is, in fact, a spiritual sickness requiring a spiritual antidote.<\/p>\n

Then, there are those authors in the fields of New Thought spirituality and addiction whose whole body of work encompasses this very notion. Among them are Louise Hay and Marianne Williamson, who wrote the book \u201cThe Spirituality of Weight Loss: Cracking the Code of Compulsive Behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is, of course, much medical literature which also states that alcoholism is caused by biochemical and biological malfunctions. Then there\u2019s the fact that, statistically, the most heartily proven antidote to alcoholism is the twelve-step model, which not only includes this spiritual component, but other aspects as well, including attendance at A.A. meetings.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, it\u2019s the spirit which hovers in the background and the foreground as the primary force of the A.A. program. And it is the spiritual which is prescribed today by numerous religious scholars, spiritual practitioners<\/a><\/strong> and even those in the psychological community.\u00a0Perhaps we are all addicted to something, whether it\u2019s something as fierce as alcohol, gambling or tobacco, or as seemingly innocuous as television or shopping or as \u201cnatural\u201d as eating or sex. And perhaps these very ties that bind us to this world are opportunities for us to bind ourselves to something that is of another, greater and bigger world.<\/p>\n

What’s ahead for your <\/em>career path?<\/strong> Try a psychic reading. Call 1.800.573.4830<\/span> or choose your psychic now. <\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do alcoholism and spirituality have in common? They’re both a quest for God in different forms, say the various Twelve-Step programs and spiritual writers alike…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6533,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[2641,7,1434,7362,74],"cp_author":[7596],"class_list":["post-5870523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind-body-spirit","tag-addiction","tag-astrology","tag-horoscope","tag-spirituality-religion","tag-tarot","cp_author-california-psychics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAddiction: A Call to Spirituality | California Psychics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What do alcoholism and spirituality have in common? 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