Treating limerence as an addiction

[David]

I came across this in my facebook Carl Jung group. For me it eqally applies to limerence. What do you think?


My friend John and I have a profound and intimate experiential understanding of addiction and recovery… A descent into the depths of a Hell few could even begin to imagine, and a spiritual awakening that even fewer could understand.

Active addiction that has progressed to the end stages is like being stuck in quicksand, the more you struggle the more you sink, in other words a sick mind cannot fix the situation it created, it’s like Einstein once said “A problem can’t be fixed by the same state of consciousness which created it.”

But on the other side of it those who really dig deep and recover find a live beyond anything they could have thought to ask for.

Jung’s metaphor explains it well “It is said that no tree can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” and hell it was, but we wouldn’t have got to our current understanding and life as we know it without the self inflicted hell, so there’s nothing to regret or take back except for the harm we caused others which we try to mend of course to the best of our ability.

Current statistics of addiction treatment facilities demonstrates a dismal 90% failure rate in the first year, and it is because addiction is a symptom of a much deeper problem.. one that goes far beyond the substances subsequent selfishness and morality, this is an illness that goes into the depths of ones soul, it’s a soul sickness so to say.

“Addiction is the equivalent…. of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness.” - Carl Jung

Carl Jung was the first and only thinker in his field of psychoanalysis to grasp the underlying secret of enduring recovery from addiction.

Alcoholism and drug addiction, he believed, involves a spiritual thirst for a sense of wholeness – the true secret of its numinous power and the reason why a person can be led into an addiction they cannot escape no matter what is thrown at it in an effort to overcome or manage it.

The drugs and alcohol are but a symptom of the problem, and become the bad solution we used to threat the problem because it gives us a false sense of wholeness, and this works for many years until it doesn’t.

Because of its numinous like power, it slowly becomes ones God and can consumed us entirely… body, mind and soul.

Jung understood intuitively that only a radical conversion to something equally powerful for the individual but on a deeper level can promote recovery, this numinous experience can bring about a psychic change and he saw that with the Oxford Group of which Bill Wilson was once a member, has found a way to keep this thing alive as all spiritual experiences have an expiration date if not watered and fed correctly.

Jung in some of his letters encouraged people to stay within the Oxford Group, he knew that something extremely special occurs within that community of right action.

Jung played an instrumental role from afar in setting up the outlines of AA by giving one of its members key pieces of information which AA’s founder Bill Wilson wrote about at the end of the chapter “There is a solution” in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

In a later letter to Bill Wilson, Jung wrote, “You see, “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.”

“spirit against spirit” A spiritual experience to counter addiction to the spirits.

The root meaning of the word alcohol came from Arabic al-kuḥl ‘the kohl’ meaning spirt, one can easily make the connection.

Jung believed it is necessary to replace the addictive substance with a transcendent experience that brings about a radical psychic change resulting in totally different attitudes outlooks and perspectives ushering in a profound and life altering spiritual awakening.

An awakening so profound in fact, that it transforms the person who was once consumed body mind and soul Whole and in tune with the universe.

One of Jung’s many great contributions to the world was bringing a deeper understanding to addiction that subsequently helped Bill Wilson bring a clear message to millions of alcoholics and others through the various 12 step programs that sprung up as a result.

Bill Wilson was once offered Times person of the year but he declined to remain Anonymous, not sure why Jung never made it on the cover of that magazine.

John McNeely and I put this post together this week, but we’ve talked about this subject a lot the last couple years, it’s long overdue as it’s something I’ve been wanting to share about for some time now.

[L-F]

Revisiting this, I think theres some truth to it. It could be treated like an addiction.