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ALCOHOLISM TREATMENT TECHNIQUES: SPIRITUAL COUNSELINGThere is increasing effort to educate and inform clergy members about alcohol abuse and alcoholism. The focus of the effort is to equip pastors, priests, rabbis, ministers, and chaplains who come into contact with alcoholics or their families to assist in early identification and help get the alcoholic into treatment. Presumably the merits of this effort are self-evident. There is plenty of room in the alcohol field for many different kinds of care providers. This section on spiritual counseling is not about this educational outreach to clergy members. Instead, we wish to discuss the contribution that clergy members, priests, or rabbis may make to the recovery process in their pastoral roles.Alcoholics may have a need for pastoring, “shepherding,” or spiritual counseling, as do other members of the population. In fact, their needs in this area may be especially acute. Attention to these needs may play a critical part in the recovery process.It is not easy to discuss spiritual matters. Medical, social work, psychology, or rehabilitation textbooks do not include chapters on spiritual issues as they affect prospective clients and patients. The split between spirituality and the “rest of life” has been total. In our society, that means for many it has become an either/or choice. Because defining crisply what we mean by spiritual issues is not easy, let us begin by stating what it is not. By spiritual we do not mean the organized religions and churches. Religions can be thought of as organized groups and institutions that have arisen to meet spiritual needs. The spiritual concern is more basic than religion, however. In our view, the fact that civilizations have developed religions throughout history is evidence of a spiritual side to human beings.There are also experiences, difficult to describe, that hint at another dimension different from but as real as our physical nature. They might be called “intimations of immortality,” and they occur among sufficient numbers of people to give more evidence for the spiritual nature of humankind.In a variety of ways we can see an awakened interest in spiritual concerns in contemporary America. Whether it is transcendental meditation, Zen Buddhism, Indian gurus, Jesus “freaks,” the “Moonies,” mysticism, the Moral Majority, or the more traditional Judeo-Christian Western religions, people are flocking in. They are attempting to follow these teachings and precepts, with the hope that they will fill a void in their lives. It is being recognized that “making it,” in terms of status, education, career, or material wealth, can still leave someone feeling there is something missing. This “something” is thought by many to be of a spiritual nature. This missing piece has even been described as a “God-shaped hole.”Alcoholism as spiritual searchHow does this fit in with alcohol and alcoholism? First, it is worth reflecting on the fact that the very word most commonly used for alcohol is “spirits.” This is surely no accident. Indeed, consider how alcohol is used. It is often used in the hope it will provide that missing something or at least turn off the gnawing ache. From bottled spirits, a drinker may seek a solution to life’s problems, a release from pain, an escape from circumstances. For awhile it may do the job; but eventually it fails. To use spiritual language, you can even think of alcoholism as a pilgrimage that dead-ends. Alcohol is a false god. To use the words of the New Testament, it is not “living water.”If this is the case, and alcohol use has been in part prompted by spiritual thirst, the thirst remains when the alcoholic sobers up. Part of the recovery process must be aimed at quenching the thirst. Alcoholics Anonymous has recognized this fact. It speaks of alcoholism as a threefold disease, with physical, mental, and spiritual components. Part of the AA program is intended to help members by focusing on their spiritual needs. It is also worth noting that AA makes a clear distinction between spiritual growth and religion.Clergy assistanceHow can the clergy be of assistance? Ideally, the clergy are people within society who are the “experts” on spiritual matters. (Notice we say ideally.) In real life, clergy are human beings, too. The realities of religious institutions may have forced some to be fund raisers, social directors, community consciences, almost everything but spiritual mentors. Yet there are those out there who do, and maybe many more who long to, act as spiritual counselors and advisors. One way the clergy may be of potential assistance is to help the alcoholic deal with “sin” and feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and hopelessness. Many alcoholics, along with the public at large, are walking around as adults with virtually the same notions of God they had as 5-year-olds. He has a white beard, sits on a throne on a cloud, checks up on everything you do, and is out to get you if you aren’t “good.” This is certainly a caricature but also probably very close to the way most people really feel if they think about it. The alcoholic getting sober feels remorseful, guilt-ridden, worthless, endowed with a host of negative qualities, and devoid of good. In his mind, he certainly does not fit the picture of someone God would like to befriend or hang around with. On the contrary, he probably feels that if God isn’t punishing him, He ought to be! So the alcoholic may need some real assistance in updating his concept of God. There’s a good chance some of his ideas will have to be revised. There’s the idea that the church, and therefore (to him) God, is only for the “good” people. A glance at the New Testament and Christian traditions doesn’t support this view, even if some parishes or congregations act that way. Jesus of Nazareth didn’t exactly travel with the smart social set. He was found in the company of fishermen, prostitutes, lepers, and tax collectors! Whether a new perspective on God or a Higher Power leads to reinvolvement with a church, assists in affiliation with AA, or helps lessen the burden of guilt doesn’t matter. Whichever it does, it is potentially a key factor in recovery. Again, to use spiritual language, recovery from alcoholism involves a “conversion experience.” The meaning of conversion is very simple: “to turn around” or “to transform.” Contrasting the sober life to the alcoholic’s drinking days certainly testifies to such a transformation. A conversion experience doesn’t necessarily imply blinding lights, visions, or a dramatic turning point, although it might. Indeed, if it does involve a startling experience of some nature, the sober alcoholic will need some substantial aid in dealing with and understanding this experience.*138\331\2*

You may say, “I already suffer enough pain. What good can it do to inflict more pain?” I have asked you to go along with me in these ideas, and I must ask you to go along with me in this. Yes, you are suffering pain. In suffering pain in the way that you do, you are having an experience of suffering uncontrolled pain, pain that you can do nothing about. Perhaps it is better to say that your mind is having an experience of pain which it can do nothing about. Now, what I want to do is to give your mind a different kind of experience—an experience of pain which it can do something about, of pain which it can control. This new experience will give your mind a basis from which to work. In this first experiment it does not matter if the pain is very slight. The thing that matters is the new experience of the mind in being able to control it.

Inflicting Pain on Oneself-There is no doubt that these exercises in pain would be easier if I were there to inflict the painful stimulus on you for the first time, rather than you having to do it to yourself. But if you will just make a start, you will find that you can do it quite easily.

Instead of inflicting pain on the patient, I sometimes do it to myself while the patient is watching, and then ask him to do it to himself. So now, although I am not there with you, you can let yourself feel that I have just done it, quite easily and naturally. I was completely relaxed. There was nothing complicated about it. Now it is your turn.

*139\57\2*

Some particular event may motivate us to do something. At another time we may do the same thing from quite different motivation. Just now, when you were looking at TV, were you doing so for entertainment, for enlightenment or simply as an escape?

The housewife has got her husband off to work, and the children off to school. It was all a bit of a rush. And the little one has been complaining of a pain in his tummy. ‘I suppose it was his nerves. But it could be something else.’ She is stressed. Makes a cup of tea, turns on the TV just to help her settle out of it. Her thoughts are taken away from the little one’s tummy, and her husband being in such a rush that there was no kiss goodbye. In a little while her stress is reduced, and she gets on with the chores of housework.

So in this way TV becomes an effective and rather harmless means of relieving minor stress. Her husband comes home. He is stressed by the problems of the day. She wants to discuss household events; she needs to talk to relieve the emotional isolation of being alone in the house. But because of his own tension, he immediately turns on the TV. His tension is reduced and hers rises! Of course, the real answer to this situation lies in the fact that the simple ‘being with’ of man and woman reduces the tension of both parties.

The danger is that TV can become the major stress-reducing mechanism for all and sundry in the household. Anyone who feels a little tense or restless from minor stress turns on the TV. It does not matter what the programme is, it is only the distraction that is wanted. This kind of escape from stress becomes socially destructive from the time that is wasted. If the individual can learn simple, biologically effective ways of managing stress, he is free to use this wasted time in productive leisure that will improve the quality of his life.

The individual may become aware that he is in fact hooked on TV in just the same way as others are hooked on alcohol, drugs or tranquillizers. This awareness itself may be quite upsetting, and will compound with other factors to increase still further the stress situation.

*72/98/5*

«Do men get silly as they get older? He is drinking too much. Not much. But enough to be too much. We go to a party. He gobbles up two or three whiskies as soon as he can get them. Then wanders off. Flirts with the younger women. Some of them are flattered. After all, he is a distinguished man. But I am sure some of them would like to give him the slip, and talk with men of their own age. I am just left to my own devices. I don’t like it. Feel embarrassed. Spoke to him about it. All he said was, “You are all right. You can talk to people”, and left it at that. But it is not all that easy for a woman. Besides, I am basically a shy person. I think people notice that the evening goes by and he hardly says a word to me.

‘It’s really the drink. If we go where there is not much drink we stay together, and I quite enjoy it, but he feels it rather a bore.

‘Worse than this, I am frightened he will be caught driving with too high a blood alcohol level. That would be awful for a man in his position. »

She needs to enlist the help of one of his friends. Someone of equal professional status, who can speak to him as man to man on an equal footing.

When we warn someone who is acting foolishly, we want to warn them in areas which are socially acceptable for discussion. In this case his friend should warn him about the dangers of drinking and driving, but should leave the effect of his drinking on his wife alone, as it is much more difficult to tolerate advice in this other area. The effect of the advice, if it is heeded, covers both areas.

It is much better for the advice to be given by a third party, rather than the woman herself. If she gives it, there is a likelihood that it will cause further tension between them.

There is another point. In dealing with stress situations, counseling and the giving of advice is usually not much help, because the type of understanding needed to be effective is something deeper and more biologically significant than the logical understanding of our intellect. But in this case, the consequences of drinking and driving are so simple, and so well acknowledged, that direct counseling may well be effective.

*34/98/5*