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ability of the AA basic principles? medical-dictionary name, is really a I find that it’s generally taken result of the body’s desperate effort for granted by experts on the sub- to meet our dernands-an indication The Search for Ecstasy ject that alcoholism is a particular symptom of a very widespread disof the way we are o v e ~ o r k i n git. This, of course, is an extension of by Gerald Heard tress, a kind of psycho-physical ill- an idea which has been current in a ness. number of medical schools for the This basic notion is today gaining last twenty years. psycho-somatic. increasing attention among all doc- therapy believes that though the octon. With his extensive and con- casion of a disease may be an attack vincing studies on “stress” and as a by bacteria, their power to lay us A note from Bill W. central part of his big theory, Dr. low depends on our general resist- Hans Selye of Canada points out ance. The Grapevine is trying out the that most of the illnesses we now Now what light d o e all this reidea of inviting an occasional article suffer from are not infective dis- search throw in particular on alcofrom its friends in the world around eases–they are not caused by bac- holism, in general on addiction (of us. Gerald Heard, one of our teria or viruses. which alcoholism is one type)-and most ardent well wishers, has The diseases which interest him most comprehensively on that gensent in the “think piece” and which must increasingly inter- eral susceptibility to breakdown of printed below. The views he est our “oldstering” society are the which addiction is only one form? here sets forth are sure to be big, slow-mgving, wearing-down ill- First, it would seem to show that stimulating to many an none of us is living in a sufficiently nesses against which medicine fights AA member. tonic way, so to be able to meet decade-long rear actions: arthritis, asthma, alimentary canal ulcera- the stresses to which we are now tions, loss of intestinal resilience, bound to be exposed, without break- NOBODY,IN OR OUT OF AA, can hardening of the arteries–yes, even, down. doubt that this-AA’s most remark- in certain cases, TB. Second, the gays in which we try able attack upon a major complaint, These diseases he regaids as to bolster our defense d o not go alcoholism-has resulted in some- symptoms. . . . The body has been deep enough. Take, for example, the thing much bigger, even, than its over-strained. In the attempt to re- best known ” ~ ~ f i d e rdrug,” penisuccess against this most damaging lease additional energy and to sum- cillin. Indeed, all the antibiotics-social and individual disability. mon exceptional effort, the ductless of which penicillin has become the Look first at the rise of what some glands (especially the suprarenals, most relied u ~ ~ – – r e a l l y deal only of us call the “ad hoc churches.” glands which are readily affected by with an occasion, not its cause. These are the many anonymous our aggressive emotions and drives) They so slaughter all the bacteria groupings which, modelled on AA narcotic addiction through epilepsy, have been overworked. If you con- that bad and good, friends and and using i t . main principles, have cancer, and heart surgery to the tinue to overwork an organ it will enemies all perish. The house is helped people to endure ordeals trials of bereavement and divorce. begin to break down. “left empty, swept and garnished,” other than alcoholism and a t the Why has this happened and how Dr. Selye has gone far to prove and, as in the parable, far worse same time to help their fellow suffer- may we in society as a whole avail that much disease is not a real dis- guests may enter and occupy. ers. These other ordeals range from ourselves of this widening appli- ease but a symptom. What we see But how are we to keep up a as a sickness, and label with a really deep-dom, rock-bottom de-

fense? For if, as the Quakers say, have a personal experience of purwe try to “center down” what do we posive power; ( 2 ) i t must be find? We don’t find a rock. Rather brought to him by one who had also do we find a stream. That doesn’t been aghast a t the emptiness of our mean we are just a flux of bubbles way of living, who had fled to alwhose name is legion. It means that hol and then found a power greater deep down we are a current. Our than addiction; (3) then the salvlittle surface crust wants to “stay aged person must find a group, a put.” Our deep self wishes to move model society, whose members have on, to grow. gone through the same ordeal to There, I believe, lies the cause of the same initiation. our stress. That is why general re- This, then, is what I believe to be sistance is itself as vain a dream as the pmprehensive meaning of AA. is a panacea drug that would keep First, it has proved itself to be salvaus well for good. We are meant to tion for those caught by the gravest grow, we are wired for intensity. symptom of our general distress– Comfort, a d j u s t m e n t , security, alcoholism. Next, it has been seen adaptation-these are deadly terms that its twelve-step method can be for man. applied to succor those stricken by Though alcohol is a narcotic, al- other distresses for which our educoholism (like all addictions) is not cational training gives no adequate at base a search for utter sedation. preparation. Third, since it indi- It is a desire for that ecstasis, that cates that because man is made for “standing out” from the land-locked growth in consciousness as well as lagoons of conformity, out onto the conduct and character and so must uncharted high seas where the only tire of everything but ecstasy-we map is the star-set heavens. must all of us learn how to train Alcoholism is, then, itself a ourselves with exercises that teach master-indicator. For centuries it us to meet life’s accidents as ordeals has been Western man’s standard which, when thus taken, lead to alternative to a materialism that initiation. provides means without meaning Only thus can we keep the initiaand power without purpose. AA has tive toward experience. Only thus proved that you cannot cure addic- can all events come to be regarded tion by reason, by regime or by as opportunities for an embryonic drugs. You must give the protestor- growth, here and now, which preinebriate three things: (1) he must pares us for a maturity yet to come.