Because of the inherent anonymity of Alcoholics Nameless (AA) and a number of different 12-step applications focusing on totally different types of restoration, statistics on their scope are considerably elusive; AA studies worldwide membership inside some 180 nations, and greater than 123,000 particular person AA teams. Whereas AA itself is a comparatively younger establishment, approaching a mere 90 years since its founding in Ohio, therapeutic and restoration from dependancy is an idea with origins within the oldest of human societies. Scholar and psychotherapist Kikan Massara’s The 12 Steps: Symbols, Myths, and Archetypes of Restoration (Taschen, June 2024) examines concepts about dependancy and its therapy in artwork from historic to up to date occasions, all by the precise lens developed by Alcoholics Nameless and its related literature.
The core of this parlance is, after all, the eponymous 12 steps within the e-book’s title. A piece of the e-book breaks down every step into its core precept, after which illustrates it by artworks and literature. Step One, summarized as “Admit Powerlessness,” is paired with “Despair” (1894) by Edvard Munch, “Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth” (1842) by J. M. W. Turner, “Sueño” (1992) by Kiki Smith, and even a Ptolemaic reduction relationship to 332 BCE from the Temple of Haroeris and Sobek within the Nile Valley of Egypt. Every captures the devastation, confusion, and tumult of a shedding battle with alcoholism and different associated ailments — one which drives thousands and thousands of individuals to succeed in out for assist.
Along with this detailed take a look at step-work in artwork historical past kind, the e-book explores different instruments of psychological and bodily restoration, equivalent to psychologist Carl Jung’s notions of connection, powerlessness, and the “shadow self”; transformation myths together with the hero’s journey; and portals for expanded consciousness like sacred trance, divine ecstasy, and what Massara refers to as “the darkish evening of the soul.” The so-called “Flammarion Engraving” is an unattributed woodcut picture of a pilgrim-traveler piercing the veil of the heavens to witness the underlying mechanics of the universe, first showing in astronomer Camille Flammarion’s 1888 publication L’atmosphère: météorologie populaire (The Ambiance: Common Meteorology). This work demonstrates that dependancy isn’t the one attribute that has plagued humanity since its inception and therapeutic from its devastating results leverages one other pure human tendency: the curiosity to transcend each day actuality and glimpse what greater energy would possibly govern life as we all know it.
Whether or not as a companion studying for artwork lovers in restoration communities or an enchanting view of the artwork historical past of dependancy and therapeutic, The 12 Steps provides a wealth of knowledge and perception into an often-taboo topic. In the end, it encapsulates considered one of AA’s most redeeming notions: that even the depths of dependancy could be reworked, by sharing and connection, into worthwhile factors of inspiration for ourselves and each other.
