Alcoholism

JUNE 2, 1980, 5:19 AM
SAN FRANCISCO, LYON ST.

It is time to return to some insights that shall help redirect your musical presentation, o son. I want that to retain all of the good from the old and yet attain some new sparkle and new feeling. You will need to practice it, but only to get the feeling. It still must be rather fresh and new with each audience.

This that we talk about today is that major negative effect of alcohol on people – the addiction, so that spirit is revealed repeatedly and the negative returns accumulate. You hear Me say again (and you may soon believe it!) that there is a strong spiritual component to the illness of alcoholism. In its manifestations it is not just a physical/mental condition. Intoxication with alcohol brings about a revealing of the spirit that can be frightening. Consider some of these revelations.

The most awful is the showing of an angry spirit. An angry spirit is a deeper condition than the emotion of anger. (Recall the teaching on love). When an angry spirit is revealed there is the display of violence. Some may be verbal… and in some people this is the way in which the anger is shown. Loudness, vituperation, profanity, ridicule, sarcasm all are in evidence. The target may be one other person, certain others, particular groups or all people, including those present.

Another form of anger is that against other forms of life, against machines, or other parts of the physical world. This often results in destructiveness… and the worst is anger against people that is translated into destructiveness of things.

In a more real sense, of course, the “worst” behavior is actual hurt upon or destruction of another person or persons. The angry spirit is uncontained, and violence pours forth, engulfing targets… and others.

Consider also almost another “worst”. (My hierarchies were not well organized this morning). This is anger toward self, wherein alcohol allows the anger to be felt and expressed against self, and the mind is relatively powerless to defend the self… and the love of self is, also, too minimal.

The angry alcoholic can be a most fearsome human being. The behaviors often make compassion difficult to show. The worlds of many rumble and quake because of the presence of that angry spirit revealed repeatedly in alcoholism.

Another manifestation is the disparaging… even the hating… spirit. There may not be the outward display, as in anger (though there may be… particularly if there is some of each). Most often there is a disengagement from others, with snide, disparaging tongue, and retreat to within self… or away from others. If there is little hatred of self, the retreat may be merely a withdrawal. Yet if there is also disparagement and hatred of self there is great incentive to drink, often quietly, to the extinction of consciousness.

When spirits are angry and hateful, the condition that reveals these combines with the manifestation to become an illness, even a disease. As you suspect, some is karmic, though this is frequently cumulative… the person who has been alcoholic in other lives and is not yet developed enough to resist it in another life here. These are sad souls, and I sorrow over their plight.

Some is hereditary. An interesting juxtaposition is the well-developed soul, with gentle, loving spirit in a body that has that genetic predisposition.

There shall be more of these teachings on this theme, but I must always reinforce this truth: the treatment that leads toward real recovery is that which exercises the spirit and causes it to develop away from anger and hate and toward love and gentle acceptance. Unless the spirit manifests itself in constructive ways the cessation of drinking merely controls the symptoms. AA works best as a fellowship of souls who put their hand in Mine and in those of one another. As people truly share, spirits increase and the illness succumbs to developing health.

Know that these are unorganized insights. Your task is the application to your task.

This day is full of promise.

Aloha
6:13 AM