The Shadow knows.
This is sort of an addendum to the previous post about psychedelics, and added in the spirit of the parts of the video that mentioned a high success rate in treating alcoholism/addiction with LSD therapy. These are ideas I first became familiar with decades ago and though I’d never received this treatment I’ve no reason now to doubt its effectiveness. It makes perfect sense to me, at least within the context of my experience with addiction. Don’t get it twisted as it would be a terrible mistake to try it on one’s own outside of a therapeutic setting but it makes sense.
One of the key components of any 12 steps program is taking your own “searching and fearless moral inventory,” during which the addict will be forced to make a painstaking examination of their deeds and motivations for their deeds during the course of their active addiction (and maybe before and since). They are going to have to delve into and accept aspects of themselves that they’ve repressed for one reason or another, the reasons usually being self-loathing and the fear that such ugliness exists in them to begin with. Carl Jung may have referred to this as their Shadow. https://highexistence.com/carl-jung-shadow-guide-unconscious/
This can be a particularly terrifying undertaking and it’s not uncommon for relapses to occur at this stage of the recovery process. One of the bigger criticisms of 12 steps programs is that this is done outside of a therapeutic setting with only the assistance of people (a sponsor and program friends maybe) who are often drastically under-qualified for the task. The sponsor can say again and again that it’s okay and a lot of people have done it, and that’s true, but it doesn’t help much for people who are in the grips of the terror of looking at themselves closely for the very first time.
There is a parallel to this in a psychedelic trip, where seeing oneself for the first time without the filters one has grown accustomed to can lead to what is referred to as a bad trip. The fear in these cases can manifest in any number of horrible ways, depending on the strength of the dose — anywhere from a sudden “knowing of one’s self” to externalized visions of demons and monsters.
It’s not fun.
I do believe that the journey is absolutely necessary to build any sort of lasting “sobriety” but it’s not easy. The terror was lessened for me in my journey towards being clean only because I had already confronted the Shadow during several unpleasant acid, mushroom and mescaline trips. I chose for years to ignore that they were there and continued shambling on my wasted ways, but there was never again a moment when I didn’t know they were beneath the surface. They made themselves known on the regular and there was no longer a doubt as to what was driving me to behave the way I behaved. I had more than a platonic relationship with my Shadow.
When decades later I took the easier, softer path towards getting clean there was never any doubt of exactly what I would be confronting in my inventory. It was scary for sure, but it was much less of a surprise. It was easier to stop externalizing blame and start internalizing it and then integrating it and finally dismissing at least enough of it to get by. It’s easier to see the Shadow now when it starts taking what it believes to be its rightful place in a situation, stop it, look at it, and say “No, this is not yours. You have to go.” (That’s not to say I don’t still have blind spots, but…)
So yes, there are parallels in the psychedelic trip and the sobriety trip. The former, I do readily believe, can push the latter on faster, and given the right setting and support might help the more hopeless cases. There is no doubt in my mind that it works and no doubts as to why it works. Both reveal the Shadow and cast it into the open where it can be dealt with accordingly.
Keeping this relatively short and sweet though and anyone who comes across this might want to watch the video in the previous post for beginners and then move on to Google for more information. Again, I don’t recommend trying any of it outside a controlled setting. Like, don’t contact some self-proclaimed shaman named Josh on Craigslist and sit through some ayahuasca ceremony in his parents’ Upper East Side apartment puking into a bucket and having a fucking living nightmare. Sure he might have gone to the Amazon basin for a month and tripped with Indians but he is still missing hundreds of generations of knowledge and experience. And he is not a doctor. You want someone there who can save your life and your mind if shit gets weird.
I got lucky in many aspects of my journey, and it’s been decades and it’s still ongoing. I have no intentions of revisiting the world of psychedelics. I think that all my past experience and ongoing work in sobriety and therapy are giving me the tools I need to keep it moving.
Selah.
What rough beast 