Dr. Carl Jung, one of Freud's students, was instrumental in our current understanding of chemical dependence as a disease. He is credited by Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, with starting the chain of influence which led to Bill's own sobriety and the founding of A.A.

Dr. Jung told Rowland Hazard that his type of alcoholism was hopeless without some type of spiritual conversion experience. This took place after a year of psychoanalysis during which he hoped to root out the cause of Roland's drinking. Dr. Jung had come to this conclusion after trying to help many alcoholics and seeing only a few of them recover, usually after just such an experience. Rowland had achieved a brief sobriety with the help of Dr. Jung, only to relapse terribly into drinking again, which drove him to seek and follow the psychoanalyst's advice and to follow it to the letter.

Rowland then went on to join the Oxford Group and have what A.A. terms a "spiritual awakening". Soon thereafter, he met Ebby Thatcher, an old schoolmate and drinking buddy of Bill Wilson's. Ebby proceeded to get sober, and carried the message to Bill, who applied the wisdom from these men to his own sobriety and eventually to the program of A.A.

For more information, see http://www.wemac.com/info/adm_hist.html