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I'm Krista Tippett, Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson.

One said that the program he helped create is utter simplicity which encases a complete mystery.

This hour we'll explore the spiritual foundations of addiction and recovery.

We'll hear the riveting story of Lakota teacher and healer Basil Braveheart,

also author Susan Chiever who's published a biography of Bill Wilson.

She knows addiction and recovery in her own life and in the life of her father,

the late fiction writer John Chiever.

There's something mysterious at the heart of Alcoholics Anonymous

and whether you call it God or not, there's something mysterious there that makes people whole again.

This is speaking of faith. Stay with us.

I'm Krista Tippett. In 1961, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote a now famous letter

to Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Jung described his failed attempts to

treat addiction by psychotherapy. He compared an alcoholic's cravings to the spiritual thirst of

our being for wholeness, for union with God. Alcohol in Latin is spiritus Jung pointed out

and the same word can be used for the highest religious experience as well as for the most

depraving poison. This hour, we'll explore the spiritual principles Bill Wilson and others

formed in response and their power in many traditions and cultures.

From American public media, this is speaking of faith. Public radio's conversation about

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