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UNCENSORED VERSION
[Rumble][Transcript Below]
Let’s just say my dad was old school, and the way that he expressed love was by yelling at me. I love the man, I respect the man—just stating some facts here. And it was tough to be home. And then, of course, just being a teenager is incredibly tough for all of us. It’s just such a weird, awkward time. So for me, drinking, starting to drink at 12, 13, 14, it was about that. It was about an escape. So drinking for me started for one reason, but it continued for another.
My whole life has been a quest for wholeness and transcendence. I’m going to try to approach addiction from the perspective of Carl Jung.
Let’s just fast-forward to the Detroit underground rave scene—a lot of drug use, which I wasn’t exposed to in high school. I just drank when I was in high school. So now I’m in this new world of drugs and underground raves and all that. And then later, when I was 21, I moved out to Los Angeles and became an LA club promoter. During that time, I remember reflecting on having this spiritual void or having a confrontation with my dark side, my shadow self.
Carl Jung talks about two types of shadows: the personal shadow—the unknown dark side of our personality—and the collective shadow—the unknown dark side of society. Starting with the personal shadow, Jung calls it “the thing a person has no wish to be.” It represents unknown or little-known attributes and qualities of the ego. It is the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide from ourselves.
The shadow contains inferiorities, which everybody has but prefers not to know about. They seem weak, socially unacceptable, or even evil. The shadow is most visible when one is in the grip of anxiety or other emotions, under the influence of alcohol, etc. I remember sitting out on the rocks, out by the ocean, all hours of the night, looking out into the ocean and just thinking, “What does it all mean? What’s the meaning of life, what’s the meaning of my life?”
If you can relate to any of this stuff, please leave a comment. So it turns out Carl Jung would have guessed all of this. In fact, he kind of nails it. I didn’t discover Carl Jung until the back end of my recovery, and I was just blown away. What got me interested in Carl Jung was the stories about him and Bill W., the influence of Carl Jung in the beginning of AA. I have some notes here: Addiction can reflect a distorted attempt to connect with something greater—a form of spiritual hunger. That was what I was experiencing in California when I was 21, the club promoter kind of guy. I had all this hedonistic, fun, exciting life, but I felt empty. I was searching, thinking, “This can’t be it. This doesn’t quite feel right.”
Jung saw that behind addictive behaviors, there is often an unconscious search for transcendence or wholeness. Addictions often embody patterns that reflect deep inner conflicts and the desire for connection.
Right, so when I was out clubbing, being a club promoter, all that kind of thing, when I was younger, when I was in high school, getting drunk, going to the football games, drinking—all of that was a desire for connection. Addiction is more than just a problem to solve; it is a call to transformation. It reflects both a wound and an opportunity. Jung teaches us that by confronting our shadow, realigning with our authentic self, and seeking meaning beyond substances, we can turn the struggle of addiction into a sacred journey toward wholeness.
You are not simply fighting against addiction; you are becoming the person you were always meant to be. And I talk about this all the time: sobriety is not about suppressing desire. This is key. This isn’t about white-knuckling it. This isn’t about trying to look away. This is about looking right at it, feeling the discomfort. Sobriety is not about suppressing desire; it’s about redirecting your energy toward the life your soul is calling you to live.
To me, a lot about the way Carl Jung would think about addiction is in alignment with what I believe. So here’s an action plan for recovery if Carl Jung were to give one: Daily writing about feelings, triggers, and the inner dialogue can help in understanding the deeper motivations behind the addiction.
Dream analysis—keep a dream journal and analyze dreams for symbolic content that might relate to addiction and recovery. Support groups, psychotherapy is good; AA if that’s a good fit for you. There are other recovery groups. Find a place or people where you feel safe and supported and put this thing in the light. You can’t keep wholeness in the darkness because it festers, grows stronger, and gets worse. In fact, along the lines of psychotherapy, there’s this thing called Jungian analysis, which is derived directly from Carl Jung, where one can explore the unconscious roots of addiction.
Meditation and prayer—those are rituals. I believe in rituals that you do daily that ground you. To me, it doesn’t matter how you do the prayer, doesn’t matter how you do the meditation, but it’s this daily ritual that grounds you, that connects you spiritually. Physical health is massive. If you have low energy, no energy, you’re not going to get up off the couch and do anything about recovery. Slowly but surely, just take out the sugar in your diet, take out the processed foods, and you don’t have to do it all instantly, but create a plan where you just start eating cleaner.
Start working out. It doesn’t matter—you don’t have to go to the gym and become a gym rat, but start walking around your neighborhood, get into jujitsu, do yoga, anything like that. Just get the body moving. It’s super important that you start to create long-term goals. Aim high. Find something that you wake up in the morning excited for.
Purpose. Find or rediscover a sense of purpose or vocation. This could be through work, hobbies, or community involvement—ideally, all three. The goal isn’t to defeat the shadow, in this case, the addiction. The goal is to bring it into the light so that it no longer holds you hostage. When you’re yearning for a drink, when you’re yearning to get high, how do you feel in that state? Bring that feeling, without giving into it, into awareness and observe it without judgment. Don’t judge yourself for having these feelings.
Everyone carries a shadow. And the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected and is liable to burst forth suddenly in a moment of unawareness. In all accounts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.
