For seventy years now, Alcoholics Anonymous has been repeating a story that claimed that the
famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung treated a rich American alcoholic Rowland Hazard,
and Jung supposedly told Hazard that he must get a religious experience or else
he would die of alcoholism.
Bill Wilson believed that "the only radical remedy ... for
dipsomania is religiomania." Meaning:
the only cure for alcoholism is religious fanaticism — religious mania.
That suggestion allegedly came from Carl Jung,
the famous Swiss psychiatrist, and when Carl Jung said "mania",
he really did mean "mania", as in "maniac".
There is no truth to the story. That is just another fable that Bill Wilson made up to
scare the suckers and get them to join his cult.
Carl Jung was not in the habit of telling his patients that they would die unless they
got a religious experience.
That dipsomania quote actually came from
William James in
The Varieties of Religious Experience, page 263, footnote 1.
Varieties says:
'"The only radical remedy I know for dipsomania is religiomania,"
is a saying I have heard quoted from some medical man.'
William James published Varieties in 1902, but he didn't meet Carl Jung
until 1909, so it is unlikely that James got that line from Jung.
This subject came up again in a recent letter,
here.
This is that exchange:
"Even Carl Jung believed that alcoholics of the hopeless variety need to
have some sort of spiritual expereince and he was a man of science and
medicine."
Bullshit. That is one of the lies that Bill Wilson made up. Carl Jung never said
any such thing. That whole story about Carl Jung telling Rowland Hazard that he must have
a spiritual experience or he would die was just Bill's Bull, another scarey fairy tale
intended to fool and frighten people into joining Bill's cult.
"The Big Bad Booze Bogeyman will get you unless you believe in Bill's religion."
If you think that Jung said it, find the quote in his writings.
It isn't there.
Lots of us have been searching The Collected Works of Carl Jung for years,
searching for anything like Jung proclaiming that alcoholics must have a spiritual
experience, and Jung never said that.
Scaring patients with threats of death was what Dr. William Silkworth did, not Carl Jung.
That was not Jung's style.
Then came that little man that we who live in this area saw so much, him with the kind blue eyes and white hair, Doc Silkworth. You'll remember that Doc said to me, "look Bill, you're preaching at these people too much. You've got the cart before the horse. This 'white flash' experience of yours scares those drunks to death. Why don't you put the fear of God into them first. You're always talking about James and The Varieties of Religious Experiences and how you have to deflate people before they can know God, how they must have humility. So, why don't you use the tool of the medical hopelessness of alcoholism for practically all those involved. Why don't you talk to the drunk about that allergy they've got and that obsession that makes them keep on drinking and guarantees that they will die. Maybe when you punch it into them hard it will deflate them enough so that they will find what you found.
Bill Wilson, speaking at the Memorial service for Dr. Bob, Nov. 15, 1952
We have discussed this issue before too, several times. Look here:
By the way, "religious experience" cure did not work on Rowland Hazard. He claimed that he had
a "religious experience, which prompted him to join the Oxford Group cult religion
for a while, where he helped Ebby Thacher to recruit Bill Wilson into the cult, and then
Rowland relapsed and returned to a life of drinking, and drank on and off for the rest of
his life.
So much for the "religious cure of Carl Jung."
So much for the "religious experience" that Rowland Hazard claimed that he experienced.
In response to that letter, just to triple-check the facts once again, I requested
a bunch of Jung's books from the local library system. I got five books, and only
one of them even mentioned alcohol abuse.
This is the one and only story of Carl Jung treating a case of excessive drinking:
An American colleague sent me a patient. The accompanying diagnosis read
"alcoholic neurasthenia."
The prognosis called him "incurable." My colleague had therefore taken
the precaution of advising the
patient to see also a certain neurological authority in Berlin, for he expected that my attempt
at therapy would lead to nothing. The patient came for consultation, and after I had talked a little
with him I saw that the man had an ordinary neurosis, of whose psychic origins he had no inkling.
I made an association test and discovered that he was suffering from the effects of a formidable
mother complex. He came from a rich and respected family, had a likeable wife and no cares —
externally speaking. Only he drank too much. The drinking was a desperate attempt to narcotize
himself, to forget his oppressive situation. Naturally, it did not help.
His mother was the owner of a large company, and the unusually talented son occupied a leading
post in the firm. He really should long since have escaped from his oppressive subordination
to his mother, but he could not summon up the resolution to throw up his excellent position.
Thus he remained chained to his mother, who had installed him in the business. Whenever he
was with her, or had to submit to her interference with his work, he would start drinking
in order to stupefy or discharge his emotions. A part of him did not really want to leave
the comfortably warm nest, and against his own instincts he was allowing himself to be seduced
by wealth and comfort.
After brief treatment he stopped drinking, and considered himself cured. But I told him,
"I do not guarantee that you will not relapse into the same state if you return to your former
situation." He did not believe me, and returned home to America in fine fettle.
As soon as he was back under his mother's influence, the drinking began again. Thereupon I was
called by her to a consultation during her stay in Switzerland. She was an intelligent
woman, but was a real "power devil." I saw what the son had to contend with, and realized that
he did not have the strength to resist. Physically, too, he was rather delicate and no
match for his mother. I therefore decided upon an act of force majeure. Behind his
back I gave his mother a medical certificate to the effect that her son's alcoholism rendered
him incapable of fulfilling the requirements of his job. I recommended his discharge.
This advice was followed — and the son, of course, was furious with me.
Here I had done something which normally would be considered unethical for a medical man.
But I knew that for the patient's sake I had had to take this step.
His further development? Separated from his mother, his own personality was able to unfold.
He made a brilliant career — in spite of, or rather just because of the strong horse pill
I had given him. His wife was grateful to me, for her husband had not only overcome his
alcoholism, but had also struck out on his own individual path with greatest success.
Nevertheless, for years I had a guilty conscience about this patient because I had made out
that certificate behind his back, although I was certain that only such an act could free him.
And indeed, once his liberation was accomplished, the neurosis disappeared.
== Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C. G. Jung, Pages 121-122.
Vantage Books, A division of Random House Inc., New York, 1989.
ISBN: 0-679-72395-1
LC: BF109J8A3 1989
Dewey: 150.19'54—dc19
Carl Jung did not jabber any nonsense about how the man had to get himself a religious experience.
Jung said that the man had to get away from his oppressive mother.
And Jung did not demand that the man become the abject slave of a cult religion or the obedient
subordinate of a sponsor. Rather, Jung set the man free.
And Jung did not say one word about the man having to find a "Higher Power",
or needing a "religious experience".
And that's it. I have just gone through five books of the writings and teachings of Carl Jung,
and that is the one and only reference to treating alcoholic patients.
And Jung's treatment was just the opposite of what Alcoholics Anonymous claims.
The only other mention of alcohol is this:
Jede Form von Süchtigkeit is von übel, gleichgültig,
ob es sich um Alkohol oder Morphium oder Idealismus handelt.
Carl Gustav Jung (1875—1961), Erinnerungen, Träume, Gedanken (1962) ch. 12
Translated, it says:
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic
be alcohol or morphine or idealism. Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C. G. Jung, Pages 329.
Vantage Books, A division of Random House Inc., New York, 1989.
These four other books of Jung's teachings do not contain any references to alcoholism at all, never
mind the ridiculous story that alcoholics must get a spiritual or religious experience:
The Basic Writings of C. G. Jung, Edited, with an introduction by Violet Staub de Laszlo.
The Modern Library, New York, 1993.
ISBN 0-679-60071-X
LC: BF109.J8A25
Dewey: 150.19'54—dc20 or 150.1954
The Basic Writings of C. G. Jung, Edited, with an introduction by Violet Staub de Laszlo.
The Modern Library, New York, 1959.
LCCN: 59-5910
