Jan Bauer, Alcoholism and Women : The Background
and the Psychology
The Masculine Spirit in Women
The animus, according to Emma Jung in her book Animus and Anima, is the complex which in a woman is the opposite pole of the persona,
that is, it has the characteristics lacking in her outer and manifest personality. It is composed of the unconscious masculine traits, determined by the latent sexual characteristics, the personal experience of men, plus the collective image of men as it prevails in any given culture.
There are four basic forms in which this masculine image can appear: power, deed, word and meaning. From the football hero to the politician to the orator to the guru these are the basic archetypal patterns that attract the woman’s inner masculine projection.
Potentially, the animus contains the germs of wholeness, offering to the woman the possibility of completing herself through development of other, contrasexual capacities. But more often than not, because masculine values are so overvalued at the expense of the feminine in our culture, the animus tends to become tyrannical and overbearing
whether in the form of outside men to whom a woman submits, or an inner voice that constantly devalues her as a woman and rides her with “shoulds” and “oughts” that keep her from having confidence in her own individual way.94
Alcoholic women seem particularly to be under the thrall of this perfectionist animus in the form of impossibly high, Apollonian standards. Unlike women who refuse the challenge of the animus and prefer to remain in the passive security of the primal feminine, an alcoholic woman is driven by the animus to accomplish something, whether as a “perfect” wife and mother or a top professional woman. But, as Esther Harding points out, the animus is not a real man, therefore it tends to be exaggerated, “more royalist than the king” so
to speak, and an Apollonian animus will be all the more perfectionist and rigid because it is not intrinsic to the deepest natural part of woman.
In its positive form, the animus lends a woman the masculine attributes of “knowing what one wants and doing what is necessary to achieve it,”96 but in its more dubious aspect it can lead a woman away from life and her natural eros or relationship values. Then the masculine standards, which are so idealized that they become unreachable, are compensated for by another opposite and inner animus, aptly described as a “ghostly lover.”
Like the Pied Piper, he sings his seductive song to attract women into a fantasy world where all is possible but nothing is realized.97 He isolates the woman in daydream and fantasy, offering an escape from the dullness of a reality where knights on white horses never come and sleeping beauties wait in vain for the prince.
In his alcoholic form, this brings us back to Dionysos, one of the most powerful and seductive animus figures, famous for his power over women and for his devotion to them. Unfortunately, this devotion may have devastating consequences on their physical and psychic lives, as it saps the energy they need to deal with the difficulties and problems of everyday life.
According to Emma Jung: When this happens, the world into which we go is a more or less conscious phantasy or fairy land, where everything is either as we wish it to be or
else fitted out in some other way to compensate the outer world. . . . We notice, perhaps, that we have been drawn away somewhere but we do not know where, and even when we return to ourselves we cannot say what took place in the interval.98
What better description of an alcoholic blackout! But without even going so far, one recognizes this seductive call to fantasy in the words of women drinkers:
A doctor: “When I was drinking, I was the chief; more than that, I was the most intelligent doctor, the most beautiful woman, the most charming girl, the best daughter, the best friend. . . .”
A secretary: “Full of booze, I thought I was the kind of person I wanted to be. I thought I was charming, I thought I had a lot of friends. I guess I even thought I was half-way beautiful.”
A minister’s wife: “The first gin and ginger ale at a fraternity party in college convinced me that alcohol was the open sesame to the glamorous sophisticated world of my daydreams. . . .”
The problem consists of transforming this ghostly lover animus into a dynamic force that helps rather than hinders the woman. How this might happen is described by Emma Jung:
By the blood received, that is, by the psychic energy given to it, the spiritual principle loses its dangerously compulsive and destructive character and receives an independent life, an activity of its own.
This is just what often takes place within Alcoholics Anonymous. From a compulsive dependence on outside men or masculine values there is a shift to a recognition of values that are superior to personal ones. This rescues a woman from seductive ghostly-lover involvements or identification with a man. This, in short, is the religious attitude, a devotion to transcendent values.
That it does bring new meaning and satisfaction is certainly witnessed by the enthusiastic testimonies of women who relate their experiences in AA. In particular, they tell how the program and the men in AA have been the key points to recovery. Very few mention how other women helped. Thus, not only is the spiritual part of the program a base that transforms the destructive, magician-Dionysos animus power, but the real men in AA seem to carry the projections of this as well. Here are some revealing comments by women in AA:
”Before I was extremely proud of my independence and self-sufficiency, but something that day made it possible for me to ask a man, a friend who was in AA, for help. He answered that cry and did some wonderful Twelfth Step work on me the next week, missing an airplane and canceling other important engagements to get me started on the road to recovery. I got straight Dutch-Uncle, no-nonsense AA talk from him, but also a shoulder to cry on and a strong arm to steer me into the meeting-room for the first time.”
“It didn’t matter that I was the only woman among a group of men, in a Latin country where alcoholism among women is ignored or hidden away in psychiatric clinics. The word padrino is used in this country to describe the sponsor relationship in AA. The word also means `godfather’ and I found this interpretation perfectly apt. I was as dependent as a newborn babe on my padrino and my AA group.”
“I opened the door and there were six men. I listened and listened to what they said. One of the men told me, `You can do with the bottle whatever you want to do, drink it or pour it out. It’s your life not mine.'”
“Since coming into the Fellowship, I have been the only woman at most of the meetings in my part of this Western state. When I visit a meeting outside my own group, occasionally it seems that I am expected to reveal some deep dark secret about women alcoholics.
This I cannot do because I am not aware of any such secret. But I have never been made to feel out of place or unwelcome because of my sex. And I have never heard anything
in a discussion of AA philosophy that I could not apply to myself because I am a woman. The men in my group gave me friendship, loyalty, moral support, confidence and respect when I needed these badly and I am deeply grateful.”
When it isn’t an actual man or men that are cited as major influences in the transition from drunkenness to sobriety, it may be such things as certain AA slogans, catchy phrases that sum up practical experience and underline the need to hold on to reality:
“I started living when I stopped crying and started trying.”
“There are two things I’ve learned from this Program. First, to surrender completely to the fact that I was fighting a losing battle with the bottle, and through defeat I won. Second, to change myself, because the world isn’t going to change to suit `poor little old me.’ I have to put away childish things and grow up.”
All of the above remarks recall Jung’s definition of the masculine as “knowing what one wants and doing what is necessary to achieve it.” The AA Program seems to represent the aspect of the animus related to word and meaning, while the slogans and gestures and the men who say and do them represent a positive version of the animus as power and deed. Thus the four forms are found together.
If, as Emma Jung says, “The feminine element can only get into its right place by a detour that includes coming to terms with the masculine factor, the animus,”103 then the AA context would appear to provide the setting for this, at least in terms of the Dionysian-Apollonian conflict and the split animus that this implies.
The problem that remains, of course, concerns the woman herself. If the healing power of AA, like the Aesklepian cult, derives from preeminently masculine values, and if her alcoholism is mainly an animus affliction, what about her femininity? Where has it been and what does it become?
To answer these questions, the last chapter takes a closer look at the stories of some women alcoholics, all members of AA. Their histories are supplemented by dream material taken from cases of other women alcoholics with whom I worked in analysis. ~Jan Bauer, Alcoholism and Women : The Background and the Psychology Page 75-70
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