12SR: 12 Step Recovery Process
A podcast helping to demystify the 12-step recovery process and help people along their journey. For fun and for free.
12SR: 12 Step Recovery Process
12SR: From Bondage to Freedom, The Ego & What Recovery Is All About!
Discover the hidden parallels between spiritual awakening and the journey to overcome addiction in our latest conversation, where we unravel the essence of personal growth beyond the constraints of the ego. Our discussion illuminates how major spiritual and religious traditions—Buddhism, Christianity, and yogic philosophy—intersect with the 12-step program's roadmap to self-liberation. We navigate through these profound teachings, uncovering the universal quest to break free from the 'bondage of self' that so often ensnares us, fostering the transformative growth that is at the heart of true recovery.
Delve into a historical moment that changed the face of addiction treatment as we recount the impactful encounter between Roland Hazard and Carl Jung, spotlighting the potential of spiritual experiences in battling addiction. In this episode, we explore how a fractured self-identity, when confined within the ego's narrow walls, can lead to a downward spiral of suffering. Yet, it is within the spiritual plane that many find their solace and the catalyst for healing, an inspiring testament to the powerful intersection of spirituality and 12-step principles in charting a course to recovery and a life of newfound freedom.
Okay, guys, this episode is the big one. I really want to get into the nuts and bolts of the 12-step process and really the nuts and bolts of any spiritual system that has really ever sort of existed and exists today. The 12-step recovery beyond the first step is really no different to most other spiritual or religious systems that have been around for a long time or a short time, and actually different spiritual and religious systems. When you look at them beyond the surface level, beyond the stories and the fables and the characters, when you actually look at them as systems, if you look at them as systems of transformation, systems of change, systems of growth, they're all effectively saying the same thing in slightly different ways. Whether it's in Christianity the idea of not being so much in the world but having this relationship with God and with Jesus and that famous line of being in the world but not of it. Whether it's in Buddhism, where it talks about the illusion, the ego illusion, the world of suffering and attachment. Whether it's in the yogic systems, talking about lower energies, ego energies, root chakra energies that need to be pushed up, that need to be your chakras need to be open so that energy can float upwards. You know, really, whatever it is, that they're all kind of saying the same thing, which is, effectively, that there is more going on in a person than just their personality and just who they think they are, and that there are effectively these two entities within each person. One is a higher entity, one is, let's say, a lower entity, and you can bring morality into it, as some things do, or you can view it purely as an energy thing, as others do, where it's nothing to do with morality, it's just really to do with energy higher frequency energy, lower frequency energy. Now, if we look at Buddhism, for example, the idea there was that the root of all suffering is desire or attachment, and effectively what that pertains to is this idea that I want something and I'm not getting what I think I want, or I'm not getting it how I think I want it, and it has the power to fully affect my experience of life.
Speaker 1:In 12 step recovery, again, the foundation text of all 12 step recovery is Alcoholics Anonymous and the program that was developed there. They talk about the root of our troubles being selfishness and self-centeredness. And if you think again about Buddhism and the symbol of Buddhism, which is the lotus flower and the root of the lotus flower is the mud. It can only grow in the darkness. And the mud Very similar to 12 step philosophy about how the root is selfishness and self-centeredness. It's the mud, it's the dirt, it's the darkness, but from that comes this potential for change, because it's an energy. It's an extreme example of low energy that effectively can be transformed.
Speaker 1:Now, in 12 step philosophy, it talks about that being the root of our troubles and it talks about how we must be rid of it, above everything, that we have to be rid of this selfishness and self-centeredness. So obviously the question becomes how do we do that? And that is engaged in through the steps. But the real thing that we have to understand is and this is very much pertaining to step three is why? How is that so? Is that really true? And in that text it talks about being convinced. It talks about being convinced that running our lives on self-will, on this effort of me, is not going to be a success, and so we kind of have to look somewhat at why that is. And if that's really true, and if that's true and we don't want it to be that way anymore then what's the alternative? And so what this tape is really about is this idea about becoming free from the bondage of self, and exactly what that means. Any and every spiritual system effectively talks about that as being the path that we have to become free of the bondage of our egos, of the illusion of the self, of all of these different ways of saying it. We have to become free, we have to become less attached, but it all sounds very odd and esoteric and difficult to understand, and so I want to get into it a little bit around ways that hopefully it's easier to understand.
Speaker 1:We spoke in earlier tapes about when Bill Wilson writes about being rocketed into the fourth dimension, he says we're rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence of which we hadn't even dreamed. As a result of going through this spiritual transformation or process, we get rocketed into this new dimension of existence which is called the fourth dimension, and so, as we discussed before there, if that's the fourth dimension, there has to be three others, and so I want to go into what those are and try and explain how it is that our relationship to those is what's causing the suffering. So the first one, as we mentioned before, the first dimension is the physical dimension, the world of matter, the world of objects of people, of your body, of alcohol, of drugs, of money, sex, all of these physical, material things that exist, and we obviously exist in that world as the body. So you are, you have a body. Second dimension is of mind. So it's all of the thinking, it's all of the reasoning, intelligence and logic and understandings and language and everything like that, and we also exist there. We have minds, we can think, we can reason, we can logic, and then we have this third dimension, which is effectively this sort of self-concept. It's our personalities, it's our characters, it's our names, it's our sort of unique individual desires, our feelings, our emotions, it's the me.
Speaker 1:When things talk about the me, that would be this third dimension and generally speaking, the idea in any spiritual system, but also in 12-set recovery, is that living as these three dimensions and predominantly living in this third dimension of the me is where all of the suffering comes from and that actually that dimension is the most powerful one, which then influences the second dimension and the first dimension. So different spiritual systems believe slightly different things, but effectively they tend to all agree that the third dimension the me, the feelings, the emotion, the perceptions feeds into our thoughts and then our thoughts actually feed into our body. So if you have bad thinking, then you're gonna be physically unwell. Now, some people don't believe that, which is fine, but that's effectively the idea of spirituality, and so the effort is essentially in becoming free, detaching somewhat from this third dimension, from this me, so that there is some relief from that. And the idea is that as you detach from that me, the suffering will reduce. Now the question is well, what do we detach from and what do we detach to?
Speaker 1:Now, if you don't believe in spirituality, if you don't believe in any other dimension other than the body, the mind and the ego, then you don't have many choices, which is why therapy, for example, which deals with mind and somewhat ego, is effectively the only option. Or you get into a physical practice like exercise and yoga and things like that. Yoga I mean very much in the sense of the physical practice rather than the philosophical side of it. So that's what you do that the me is uncomfortable, the feelings are uncomfortable, and so you move into the lower dimensions, you move into the mind, or you move into the body to try to overcome the dissatisfaction in the me, in the feelings, in the emotions. Now the spiritual effort essentially says that there's another way, a better way, a more reliable way and a more powerful way, and that is instead of going to the left. So instead of going into the body and the mind, we attempt to move into this spiritual dimension.
Speaker 1:And every system, whether it's 12 step recovery, whether it's Buddhism, whether it's yoga, whether it's whatever, has a process that you can engage in that is meant to deal with this fourth dimension and trying to have some relationship with it. And it's been my direct experience that going through that process does lead to an experience and that experience is powerful enough that it actually makes a serious effect on the detachment from the third dimension and many, many spiritual, more kind of traditional philosophies. They talk about full detachment. They talk about completely being rid of this me and having no ego and all of that and kind of being this pure awareness and light, and that's great for those sort of people. But for me personally and as far as I read 12 step philosophy and the experience of the early members and things like that, there's the idea that that's not really the goal, which is mostly shown by the 12 step.
Speaker 1:But effectively the idea is that it's not, that we're not meant to have any ego or have any me and feelings and emotions and desires. It's just that we're not going to be completely absorbed by them, completely at the mercy of them. And so the basic idea is that if the deepest aspect of yourself, so we go back to these dimensions and we say, okay, you have the body. Now most people would say that the mind is a deeper dimension of oneself than their body, and more so than that. Their personality, their character, their sort of unique desires is a deeper aspect of themselves than even their mind or their body. They're more them in the third dimension than they are in the second dimension, and they're more them in the second dimension than they are in the first dimension. In most cases, that's how people perceive themselves. So the idea is is that if that's as deep as you go, then you're going to be completely absorbed, absorbed by yourself, and in many cases that's not too much of a problem.
Speaker 1:But if you are an addict and alcoholic, if you are, if you have a fractured sense of self, if you have deep anxiety, and if that sense of self, that sense of me, is deeply troubled or has issues or something goes wrong in that system, it becomes incredibly painful, and so spirituality says the way out of that is to realize through a process and this can be a sudden realization or it can be a gradual realization as a result of doing certain in 12 steps we have steps, doing certain practices and processes that when you do those you will have this realization. If you don't have it immediately, which most people don't, but you end up having this realization that there is more to what I am then these three dimensions that there is in fact this other dimension, this fourth dimension that either exists within me or I exist within it words start to get a little bit confusing at this stage, but it's definitely there and I definitely experience it. And in so having that experience, the attachment to the me reduces. It doesn't disappear, but it reduces and it suddenly becomes softer. You suddenly are not as bothered by the things that just affect you, you're not so bothered by just how you feel or getting what you want, and suddenly become more interested in the group or in the family or in the community or in the world. Your relationship to life and to yourself changes and it stops being so much about the me and in that comes all this freedom and all this peace and all this joy and that is effectively what 12 step recovery and all spiritual systems are trying to do. So I say this so people can hopefully get that and realize that yes, I am suffering, and really what I'm suffering from, if I'm really honest, is my perceptions of myself, of other people, of life, of the way that I see the world, of the way that I see myself, of the way that I feel about myself and I feel about others around my inconsistent emotions.
Speaker 1:It's people suffering as coming from this fractured sense of self, this fractured ego, this fractured third dimension, and usually that has then infiltrated the mind and the mind then has to become responsible because you don't have any other dimension, you're not involved with the fourth dimension, so you can only go to the mind and ask the mind to try and fix it, and so the mind slowly goes insane because the mind cannot fix it and then, effectively, the body starts getting involved and then the body gets very unwell and then you become physically sick. Now this happens to many, many, many people. This is what takes many people to drugs and alcohol and where addictions come from and all of those sort of things. It's an effort. It's an effort, a genuine, honest effort to fix this fractured sense of self and unfortunately it doesn't work. So once you have that realization, if you can get to have that realization, then it can somewhat open your mind to the potential, to the idea that perhaps there is another way and perhaps this spiritual dimension is possible. And if you're open to that, then you can engage in the process.
Speaker 1:Now I did mention this story before but I'm going to tell it again because it's so powerful the beginning of 12 step recovery in the words of Bill Wilson. He spoke on a tape, I can't remember which year, but he talks about. Many people think the start of 12 step recovery was when Bill and Bob met, and indeed that's the Founders Day of AA, which is the oldest 12 step program. But actually Bill Wilson says that the real big bang, the real starting point, was quite a while before Bill met Bob and it was when Roland Hazard Spent time with Carl Young. Now, roland Hazard was a Drunk. He was also a well-to-do person, he was good in business, but he was a drunk and his family had a lot of money and connections and so his family sent him to all of these psychiatrists and they were not able to help. And if you think about this through this dimensional Way. This is effectively what I'm trying to get at if you think about this idea of these dimensions, that the basic trouble as said in all spiritual traditions that this, this third dimension, this ego, this sense of self is fractured, is broken, is troubled and it leads to addiction and all of these things. So His family eventually sent him to Carl Young, they put him on a plane and they sent him see Carl Young.
Speaker 1:Carl Young is till still to this day regarded as one of, if not the greatest psychologist minds thinkers of our time. And Roland spends a year with Carl Young. During that year Carl Young works on him. He works on his body, he works on his mind, he works in his sense of self, he works as best as psychology and psychiatry can on his first three dimensions. And for that year, while Roland is there, he recovers. He is mind and body recover. He doesn't drink. After a year Carl Young Says okay, time to go, puts Roland on a plane.
Speaker 1:Roland goes back to America. The story is that he got drunk on the way home, beside himself. He ends up going back to see Carl Young and he says I cannot Understand, I cannot fathom how I drank again after all of this time I spent with you and he had become really hopeless. And he says to Carl Young is there any hope for me? And Carl Young says to him you know, what I've been trying to do is create this deep emotional Rearrangement within you. Now, if we look at that again in the dimensions, emotional rearrangement, third dimension rearrangement and he says it with most people what I do works. Now, that is also very true and very humbling thing to say that with most people, if you just have a slightly fractured sense of self, if you just have a slightly Issue with the mind, then yes, these, these things can help, these things can resolve it. Especially someone as great as Carl Young can do something.
Speaker 1:But Carl Young then says but for people like you who seem to have, there's a certain type of person, whether it's alcoholic, addict, this extreme Version of this fractured sense of self where he says it just doesn't work, everything I do, it just doesn't work. And Roland says to Carl Jung is there any hope for me? Do you have any advice? And Carl Jung says yes. He says the only hope for someone like you is to have a spiritual experience. Carl Jung goes on to say these experiences have happened since the beginning of time, but they're phenomena, we don't really understand them. However, he says that's, your best bet is to go and find one, which effectively he's saying spiritual experience, fourth dimension experience, and he encourages Roland to go and try and find one.
Speaker 1:Roland then does exactly that. He goes back to America, he gets introduced to the Oxford groups, which are a spiritual movement of that time, and he has a spiritual experience there. He then goes to see a guy called Ebbe. Ebbe then goes to see Bill Wilson and then Bill Wilson slightly changes the tenets of the Oxford group and starts AA and makes it about alcoholics in the 12 steps. But essentially that is the story as to how it came to be, and so what this channel and these tapes are really about is not to put down any other system or any other way. They're all great and they're all really helpful, depending on what the problem is.
Speaker 1:But in Carl Jung's words, if you are one of these people that is suffering from a condition that is deep, is deep in this sense of self, is deep in this fractured ego, is deep in that sense, then, as it says in the big book and as said by Carl Jung, that condition can only really be overcome by a spiritual experience. You have to. The answer is not within the first three dimensions, and so we have to start exploring this fourth dimension and we have to be willing to go on this little adventure, this little spiritual adventure, through the steps, through the process, in order to see if there's anything there. I know that's probably a lot to take in, especially if you're new, and it might not make all that much sense, but I hope that it is helpful somewhat in understanding a little bit around the philosophy and the way in which the 12 steps function as a spiritual system. In the AA foundational text it talks about the message which can hold an interest. People has to have depth and weight, and so I'm trying to put something like that forward in order to be helpful.
Speaker 1:If you have any questions, please let me know. If, where you listen to this you can't comment, then head over to YouTube and you can comment on the videos there. I'm happy to answer any questions. As always, these tapes are just my understanding, my opinion, my experience. I don't speak on behalf of anything. I'm not affiliated with anything. I just make these to try and be helpful to people in the way that these understandings have been really helpful to me and brought me much peace and joy and happiness and all that good stuff. So hope they're helpful to you. All the best. Take care, and I'll make another one soon.