A provocative reevaluation of addictive behavior that considers it
not within the prevalent "disease model," as California-based
therapist Grof puts it, but within the context of a universal need
for spiritual satisfaction. Grof's understanding of addiction is
firsthand and bard-won: She's a recovering alcoholic and draws on
her experience ("The day I hit bottom with my alcoholism, I was
brought to my knees") to ground what's sometimes an otherwise
heady, theory-laden argument. The heart of the argument is that
society's growing tendency to consider all addiction - as well as
the "attachments" (to money, prestige, other people, etc.) that
characterize much human behavior - as disease "paints a picture of
humanity as being universally sick." Instead, Grof proposes "a
wellness model for the understanding and treatment of addictions."
That model - worked out with reference to spiritual teachings from
Hinduism to Jung - posits that we each consist of two "selves": a
"deeper," perhaps divine, self that's our original nature, and a
grafted-on "small self," equivalent to the ego. From prenatal clays
onward, Grof says, we're pushed by outside, often abusive, forces
away from the greater self and into the smaller self. Yet we retain
a "craving" for the deeper self, which most of us try to slake
through inappropriate means - through the pursuit of wealth, for
example, or, in the ease of addicts, through drug highs. Addictive
behavior thus springs from a healthy impulse to return to the
deeper self - which, in fact, can be recovered only through
spiritual practices (including, apparently, Orors own "Holotropic
Breathwork," which she touts here). Addicts probably should work
with the Twelve Steps, which the author reads as a spiritual
blueprint, though one rife with pitfalls. Grof's two-selves model
of human nature is as old as the myth of the Fall; but her
application of it to addiction is inspired, well argued (though
more case histories would have enlivened the text), and alight with
hope and promise. (Kirkus Reviews)
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