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200681315

Original article

Freedom and Resistance

Mary Tod Gray

Correspondence: Mary Tod Gray, Associate Professor, East
Stroudsburg University, 200 Prospect Street, East
Stroudsburg, PA 18301, USA. Tel.:

+

1 570 422 3475
(ofce); fax:

+

1 570 422 3848; e-mail: mtgray@po-box.esu.edu

Original article

Freedom and resistance: the phenomenal will in addiction

Mary Tod Gray

PhD RN

East Stroudsburg University, East Stroudsburg, PA, USA

Prologue

The Feeling

A World of Stone

There once was an addict named will
Whose patience amounted to nil
He snorted and sniffed
And often got miffed
When his will was soundly ignored.
So what is this will that exes and ghts
And drives us to drink from within
Its freedom enthroned
And courage alight
Wrapped tight in a world of stone.
To move is to grow-to reach for it all
When thwarted the rage is bright orange
Will fantasy ight
Match motion felt free
Or dive to the depths like a stone.
Join the group! Nurse will does entreat
Connection demands it of all
But will squirms and dgets
Its strength feels diminished
Wrapped tight in a world of stone.
For resistance is keen, its contrast demands
That choice supersede the control
How will will feel free
To feel real as me
When the world is wrapped up as one.
(Author)

The View

Scene 1

She stumbled into the hospitals emergency
room, the fumes of alcohol both announcing and
trailing her entrance. Help me! Help me! she cried.
The triage nurse and security guard, calmly steer her
in the direction of an unoccupied cubicle. What the
hell do you think you are doing? Get away from me!
Ill kill you! Arms ailing, legs kicking, she resists all
efforts to direct and restrict her movements. Other
team members arrive and collectively restrain her
aggressive movements. She resists, struggling to break
free, fear and panic intensifying her efforts. Abruptly,
she vomits, and her struggle ceases; she blacks out.
The nurse turns her on her side and clears her airway.
Is this the third or fourth time weve seen her this
month? one of the staff questions.

Scene 2

A toddler, sitting on his mothers lap in
the waiting area of the airport, struggles to get down,
and investigate the novel opportunities available. The
mothers grip is rm as she restrains the struggling
child, intent on his safety. The child resists; he is
equally intent on freedom to move, to explore. His
will, the desire to move towards the environment,
encounters the mothers will to ensure safety. If the
mother holds rm, the child might continue to strug-
gle or eventually desist, becoming tired or distracted
by another interest. His will momentarily succumbs
to the strength and security of the mothers embrace.

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The Theme

Freedom, a cardinal value of individuation and our
society, is also a feeling, a sensory experience,
expressing the will. Threats to freedom are met with
resistance as evident in the above scenarios. Nowhere
is freedom more threatened than in addiction to
drugs, in which the power to reason is relinquished to
the effects of the drug. The individuals relationship
to the drug and its effects, to the rituals of procuring
and responding to the drugs, supersede individuation
yet conversely, or even perversely, express the phe-
nomenal will.

Introduction

Addiction to psychoactive drugs begins with a choice,
a choice that changes subjective experience. The
choice to change feelings, perceptions, or thoughts of
subjective experience invokes the will: the will as
action in the initiation of addiction, and its apparent
loss when the addictive ritual becomes rmly
entrenched as the central mode of activity.

1

The will,
then, emerges as a salient concept to understand the
larger phenomenonology of psychoactive drug addic-
tion discussed elsewhere (Gray, 2003a, 2003b, 2004,
2005). How the will feels subjectively, and what
meaning is conferred on that feeling, are elemental to
the wills signicance in human agency. Human
agency, in part, describes an internal renewable force
or energy source (Lawson, 2001). The subjective will
symbolizes the feeling of this vital force.
Scholars have linked the will to movement or
action (James, 1890/1981), faith or belief (Saint
Augustine, 395/1964; James, 1897/1979), reason
(Kant, 1934/1960), and power (Nietzsche, 1909/1964).
These diverse perspectives suggest a symbolic mean-
ing to the will beyond a biological capacity for action
and choice. They suggest both a feeling component
and a reective capacity which have consequences for
the individuals sense of freedom: freedom to choose
among the options arrayed before him or her,

and

to
believe in his or her right to make those choices.
Threats to this sense of freedom, inextricably tied to
choice, arouse feelings of resistance.
When clinicians work with individuals addicted to
psychoactive drugs, they often sense the individuals
resistance and label it non-compliance with treatment
or denial of the drug problem (Wing, 1995; Wheeler
& Lord, 1999). I propose that a deeper examination
of the will, experienced subjectively as feelings of
freedom and resistance, illuminates the values that
are most important to the individual. These values are
at the heart of the moral actions generated within the
individual. They are based in feelings and provide the
energy or capability for action that direct the individ-
uals future.
In this paper, I will discuss how the dynamic
between the two feelings, freedom and resistance, are
evident in the will in general, and how they become
magnied in the experience of the will in some sub-
jective narratives of drug addiction. My assumption
is that an examination of how the will is subjectively
experienced in these feelings will uncover the human-
ity hidden within the layers of addiction; will provide
insight into the struggles which recovery from addic-
tion entails; and will further a humanitarian per-
spective against which theories of addiction and
therapeutic strategies can be measured.

The will

At its most elementary level, the will is feeling in
motion; it is the feeling of movement: the perceived
movement of the bodys internal processes or the feel
of motion directed towards the external world. It is a
feeling often perceived in contrasts: the feeling of
action contrasted to the feeling of inertia; the feeling
of choice contrasted with constraint, resistance, or
oppression. Feelings of motion are embodied sensa-
tions. Awareness, intensity, and tempo mark subjec-
tive response to the wills movements, and to the
consequences of choices made. The wills action, evi-
dent in choices made, generate ideas of self and feel-
ings about that self, feelings such as self-esteem and
self-efcacy (James, 1890/1981). These actions and
their consequences arouse moral sentiments, feelings

1

Fingarette (1988) took issue with alcoholism as a disease, and
discussed heavy drinking as the central activity of the heavy
drinkers life.

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of right and wrong, which coordinate with or diverge
from individual ideals and social mores.
William James (1890/1981), American philosopher
and psychologist at the turn of the 20th century, iden-
tied individual interest as the primary force direct-
ing the wills movement towards a particular aspect
of experience. I choose to direct my attention to a
particular aspect of experience, whether I focus on
internal feelings and thoughts or external objects and
goals. In Jamess model of the will, biological capacity
for choice or volition is shaped by previous experi-
ence of various movements, which establish neuro-
physiological pathways; the memory of involuntary
movement sets the stage for the variety of movements
and directions from which one might choose. Choice
in this biological sense indicates that the proximity of
feeling and the wills action is immediate because the
patterns have been established. Immediate action,
however, is frequently deterred by obstacles, arising
both from encounters with the world, and from those
which are self-created. These obstacles to the free
ow of movement James symbolized as logjams in the
stream of consciousness. Logjams create eddies in
which the feeling is of a owing . . . in the direction
of greatest resistance (p. 427). The feeling of effort
accompanying these obstacles invites, even demands,
deliberation: to choose among possible movements
that will circumvent or overcome the obstacle.
A vignette illustrates this biological progression in
the wills development: my infant son learned to crawl
in a small apartment in Manhattans Greenwich Vil-
lage. To remain visible yet protect my son while cook-
ing in the kitchen, I placed a chair on its side across
the open doorway between the kitchen and living
area. Visible but safe, my son crawled to the open
door where he could see, but not get to me, the object
of his intention. The movement, my sons action,
towards the world, had encountered resistance (the
chair). Movement, in the form of the infants crawl,
already supplanted the involuntary practice move-
ments of the newborns ailing limbs. My sons
encounter with the chair halted the natural tendency
of forward movement towards a goal. The obstacle
interrupted the ow of movement and demanded fur-
ther action in the form of choices, what James called
deliberation.
What are the choices for movement at this point?:
cry, certainly a potent intentional action directed
towards the world, and eventually receiving a desired
response (the mother); turn towards the open (unob-
structed) space under the table in the living area, and
continue the forward movement; or cease movement
and focus attention on a rainbow of dust particles
illuminated in the suns rays ltering through the legs
of the chair. The latter two choices divert movement
from the intended goal, the mother, yet offer alterna-
tive, perhaps more interesting diversionary experi-
ences. The response of the child to obstructed
movement is, of course, based on a myriad of factors.
The point here is that the will embodied in the move-
ment towards the world encounters obstacles, which
might invite alternative actions or choices. When
obstacles prevent choices, however, the thwarted
movement might instead create internal feelings of
tension, until motion is again realized. The subjective
feel of freedom in this vignette is the feel of unim-
peded motion; a feeling of resistance arises when
obstacles to goal-directed movement occur.

The feel of freedom

In Jamess (1890/1981) model, the will is free if the
focus of attention can be sustained over a desired
period of time. Freedom in the wills motion implies
not an obstacle-free path, but one in which the focus
remains disciplined towards specic goals. James
illustrated this focus when he differentiated between
the healthy and unhealthy will. In the healthy will, an
assessment of the eld of choices is entertained, and
a selection made. The subsequent action follows the
visions lead. The vision must be realistic within the
individuals habits and societys norms. Maintaining
the idea or vision in the focus of attention, until the
action can follow the visions lead, invokes a feeling
of effort in the act of will. The feeling of effort
energy expended at a level of sensory awareness
and the ability to stay goal-focused not only play a
role in strengthening the internal sense of the wills
capabilities, both also express consent to the reality
of what is attended to (p. 1172). Focused attention
and consent are two essential components of the
healthy wills expression.

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In the unhealthy will, or what James called the
perverse will,

2

action might either fail to follow the
visions lead, creating a disconnection between vision
and action, or the time lapse between vision and
action is extreme. Either action occurs impulsively,
what James called the precipitate will, before an ade-
quate assessment of the eld of possibilities is
assayed; or conversely, in the obstructed will, action
fails to occur because energy to sustain the connec-
tion between vision and action is insufcient or
unavailable. The feel of the precipitate will is one of
wild or uncontrolled action; the feel of the obstructed
will is one of inertia or ineffectual action. Either feel-
ing results when the wills movement or action is
unable to follow the visions lead.
This disconnection between vision and action has
implications for a sense of a self which feels divided
between the ideal, which is the vision, and the actual
actions of living (James, 1902/1929). This division cre-
ates in some an intense feeling of absence and a sub-
sequent craving for more, however, ill dened that
more might be. James frequently used the individual
addicted to alcohol to illustrate both the unhealthy
will and the sensible self which feels divided. Acting
on a vision is important because it allows for a sense
of meaning and purpose to emerge from that action;
it permits a sense of coherence between feeling as
sensation and action as movement; and it unies
action and ideas of self.
The importance of this coherence is evident in
Jamess conception of belief. James (1890/1981)
believed that the will and belief are simply two
names for one PSYCHOLOGICAL phenomenon
which indicates a certain relation between objects
and the self (p. 948). Both the will and belief are goal-
directed actions. Both embody a forceful feeling of
motion and emotion.

3

When threats to the free move-
ment of either one occurs, a feeling of strong resis-
tance is apt to be experienced. Belief differs from the
will because it is an action directed towards a future
that has not yet materialized; it is an action that cre-
ates a relationship between the sensible present and
a future and thus hypothetical ideal. A beliefs action,
like that of the will, is a feeling of movement towards
an intended goal. However, the goal might be intan-
gible, uncertain, or never fully attained in a material
sense, and always just beyond reach. It is always
beyond reach because the action denotes a temporal
difference: present versus future; its intangibility thus
derives from its imaginary status. Yet even imagina-
tion carries a feeling tone, and this

striving towards

the ideal is the sensible experience of the beliefs
action. It is value-laden in that it expresses what is
most important for that individual to realize. Belief,
in the sense of value enacted, is a powerful action,
because of its potential to create the facts (James,
1897/1979), and, in doing so, generate feelings of
empowerment and optimism, and sentiments of
rightness.
These moral sentiments inform the relationship
between the wills action and beliefs commitment to
an ideal or guiding principle. These sentiments are
echoed in Saint Augustines (395/1964) discussion of
the relation between the will and Gods divine law,
and Kants approach to the relation between the will
and moral law (Kant, 1934/1960) or practical reason
(Zweig, 1970). A guiding principle, whether divine or
moral, spiritual or secular, provides direction for the
wills movement towards particular ideal goals. James
(1897/1979) called it the will to believe. Benn (1988),
more recently, describes this convergence between

2

James used the term perverse in the sense of turning away from
what is generally deemed good or accepted behaviour. This jux-
taposition of unhealthy and perverse to describe the impulsive
will conveys the links between morality, social norms, and health
in Jamess late 19th century context. Such links parallel the
judgements about healthy lifestyles and behaviours pronounced
with increasing moral authority by a current array of health
professionals. See an interesting discussion by Luik (1999) on
the emerging role of health professionals as health police.

3

James described emotion as the immediate feeling of bodily
change in response to an exciting event (James, 1890/1981, p.
1065) and a seizure of excitement perceived as additive body
sensations (James, 1894, p. 523).

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the wills action and belief commitments as
autonomy.
The autonomous decision maker is distinguished
from the self-directing or self-determining decision
maker because of these guiding principles. Self-
determination denotes that one can freely act, but a
free will establishes that one can choose the will one
wants (Frankfurt, 1971, as cited in Glover, 1988, p.
184), or in Jamess parlance that your action will fol-
low your visions lead. Jamess (1897/1979) will to
believe proposed that the power of a belief directed
towards an ideal helps to create the fact. An individ-
ual, in other words, experiences creation of the future
by relating his or her choice of action to his or her
specic ideal. The feel of freedom is inextricably tied
not just to the forceful thrust of unimpeded move-
ment, which permits me to do as I please, but to the
powerful pull of a meaningful future. I feel most free
when I move in personally meaningful directions. In
contrast, when those feelings of freedom feel threat-
ened, I experience a powerful feeling of resistance.

The feel of resistance

Resistance is a feeling which arises when the unre-
stricted ow of movement feels thwarted or delayed
by unintended or unanticipated obstacles, or the per-
ception of a superior force. Envision the latter in the
toddler struggling to escape the adults restraining
arms and explore a crowded restaurant. Submission
to overwhelming force of the parents arms might
temporarily vanquish the force of the will and the feel
of free movement; the trade-off for submission lies in
a feeling of safety and belonging. To extend this anal-
ogy further, the will as movement, denotes a force in
individuation, in this instance of the toddler; and its
submission or relinquishment a price for connection
and security. Resistance is the feel of the wills force
when individuation feels threatened, when the joy in
feeling an authentic me (Glasser, 1998) feels limited
by superior powers or external circumstances. As
such, resistance embodies a sensible response to
the conning or conforming pressures of external
sources; it also might embody a sensible pause in the
wills forward movement perhaps a pause that
invites reective choice.
Choosing goodness as a guiding principle as Rus-
sell discussed in

A Free Mans Worship

(Russell, 1917/
1959) is one way to assert ones free choice in the face
of the overwhelming external forces of determinism;
similarly, in Jamess (1897/1979, 1909/1977) philoso-
phy of pluralism, free choice and responsibility are
compatible with determinism when the belief in a
vision provides a guiding principle. It is the guiding
principle, which the individual chooses for his or her
sense of moral reality, which has consequences for
the quality of future life experiences.

4

Deliberately
choosing a path that deviates from the established
norm or common good can equally express the wills
free movement. In this instance, the value of freedom
in relation to the will might predominate over good
or rational choices as perceived by others. In the con-
text of drug addiction, the obvious good of abstain-
ing from psychoactive drugs might, in this instance,
be overshadowed by the affective value of choosing
a path that feels freely chosen by me.
The feel of the wills freedom, then, can be viewed
either as unobstructed movement or movement that
abides by a guiding principle or law, whether imposed
by God or society, or self-created and self-imposed,
such as described in belief systems (James, 1897/1979)
or autonomy (Benn, 1988). The feel of resistance is
experienced as obstructed movement, a sensory
pause in movement, which necessitates deliberation
and redirection towards a realizable goal. From a psy-
chological perspective, the sensory response might
arise from a perceived threat to individuation or
authenticity. When a previously existing freedom
feels threatened by others imposed choices and rules

4

To offset the pessimism of determinism, James (1897/1979)
extolled the hopefulness of chance possibilities in indetermin-
ism: the chance that in moral respects the future may be other
and better than the past has been (p. 137). Chance, however,
highlights uncertainty, that permanent presence of the sense of
futurity, that can keep us from feeling at home in the present
(p. 67). Jamess pragmatic and pluralistic philosophy allowed for
multiple ways of knowing the data of experience, which included
drug experiences.

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or even more powerful personalities,

5

the individual
feels an impenetrable, protective shield arise to resist
such frontal assaults as coercion or persuasion. From
a spiritual or philosophical perspective, feelings of
resistance can conceal and protect a deeper feeling of
loss: a loss of direction, vision, or guiding principle
that give purpose to ones life, or that recognize and
afrm ones worth and personal values.
Both freedom and resistance can be deliberately
abandoned in what is called the surrender or abey-
ance of the will. Such a voluntary surrender feels like
another kind of freedom: the feel of letting go of the
brakes on a downhill bike ride, experiencing multiple
sensations colliding all at once, until the rapidly pass-
ing environment becomes one with the speeding
internal sensations of exhilaration and fear. James
(1902/1929) described this type of surrender in sub-
jective experiences of mystical consciousness. These
experiences, transitory and ineffable, result in a sense
of extraordinary personal knowledge. The will, the
feel of choice and control, and resistance to its loss,
is voluntarily surrendered to the awesome sensory
experience of the immediate moment. James com-
pared the abeyance of will to the feelings of ease and
optimism induced by alcohol (James, 1902/1929), or
to the feelings of transcendent unity with something
beyond the self and others experienced with nitrous
oxide (James, 1882). He cautioned that when choice
is too long abandoned to these sensations of ease or
transcendent unity, individual action and goals
becomes meaningless. In such an endless network of
connection, the individuals creative unique force
feels stied.
These examples: the will subjectively experienced
in the dynamic movement between feelings of free-
dom and resistance to its loss, and the voluntary sur-
render of choice to immediate sensory experience,
suggests that these feelings are common to human
experience. Authors, who narrate their subjective
experiences of psychoactive drugs of addiction, illus-
trate how these feelings of the will are expressed in
action and surrender, and subsequently interpreted
within a framework of meaning for that individual.
Meaning arises from the feel of freedom as powerful
unobstructed movement: to magnied sensations of
internal processes, and to feelings of individuation or
of connection to self and to the world. The drug in
the narratives, in a sense, becomes a conduit for the
wills movement towards a personal and meaningful
goal.

6

5

John Keats, the 19th century poet, described this force of oth-
ers personalities on self-feelings upon entering a room full of
people, the identity of everyone in the room begins so to press
upon me that I am in a very little time annihilated (as cited in
Glover, 1988, p. 148).

6

In the later stages of addiction, the drug itself seems to
become the goal, yet it is the sensible awareness of movement,
that

striving towards

, that describes both the feeling of absence
felt as craving and the feeling of more that fuels an optimism
in the future missing in ordinary reality. Such optimism sensi-
bly connects the present with the feeling of a meaningful
future. In The

varieties of religious experience

, James (1902/
1929) described the self divided, in perpetual conict, when
the reality of the actual self will not sensibly connect to the
yearning for something more imagined in that ideal self. He
illustrated this sense of optimism, the pragmatic effect of such
human yearning, in a comparison of drunkenness and mystical
consciousness:
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its
power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usu-
ally crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticism of the
sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no;
drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. It is in fact the great
exciter of the

Yes

function in man. It brings its votary from the
chill periphery of things to the radiant core. It makes him for
the moment one with the truth. Not through mere perversity do
men run after it . . . The drunken consciousness is one bit of the
mystic consciousness, and our total opinion of it must nd its
place in our opinion of that larger whole. (p. 387)
For James, studying drug consciousness, such as alcohol, was
another way of understanding the plural ways of knowing
reality, of revealing something more of the human
condition.

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Subjective narratives of addiction

In some narratives related by individuals addicted to
psychoactive drugs, the drug effects magnify percep-
tion. Davy (1839/1972) in repetitive use of nitrous
oxide noted that objects become dazzling and appar-
ently magnied (p. 289). Actions intensify in quality
and power: toward the last inspirations, the [highly
pleasurable] thrilling [in the chest and extremities]
increased, the sense of muscular power became
greater, and at last an irresistible propensity to action
was indulged in . . . I know that my motions were var-
ious and violent (p. 272). Sometimes the actions
involved stamping or laughing . . . [or] dancing
around the room and vociferating (p. 274). As
repeated inhalations of the drug continued, actions
took the form of designing new ideas: vivid visual
images were connected with words in such a manner
as to produce perceptions perfectly novel. I existed in
a world of newly connected and newly modied ideas.
I theorized I made discoveries (p. 289). For Davy,
a scientist, new discoveries are a highly desirable goal.
The drug experience, as described, reveals the sensible
quality of the authors desired actions (thrilling, pow-
erful, irresistible) and implicit goals (discoveries).
Jamess (1882) aforementioned personal experi-
ence with nitrous oxide described feelings of unity,
when sensible connections are created between the
self and the world, The centre and the periphery of
things seem to come together . . . The

meum

and the

tuum

are one (p. 206). No longer does the individual
experience feelings of isolation but a merging
between me (

meum

) and you (

tuum

), mine and yours.
James used his personal experiences with psychoac-
tive drugs like nitrous oxide for philosophical pur-
poses. He rejected the enervating effects of such an
absolute unity, whether created with drugs or from a
philosophical perspective of absolute monism. For
James such absolute connection, left no room for the
unique efforts of the individual in shaping his own
future; personal choice becomes meaningless. James
(1912/1976) believed that in some ways individuals
are connected, but, and this, I believe, is particularly
signicant to feelings of resistance in addiction, in
some way each individual is uniquely separate, and
prizes that separateness.
Other addicted authors cite creative and soothing
actions in the drugs effects. De Quincey (1821/1956)
noted that opium created a chronic pleasure, a steady,
equable glow, experienced as an order, legislation, and
harmony to mental faculties, and most importantly
the benign impulses of the heart (pp. 389390). For
De Quincey, opium restored the feelings of serenity
which are the natural state, disguised by sobriety:
opium compose[s] what has been agitated, . . . what
has been distracted . . . The diviner part of his nature
is paramount; [and] the moral affections are in a state
of cloudless serenity; overall is the great light of
majestic intellect (pp. 309391). The natural state,
extolled by 19th century romantics (Untermeyer,
1955), nds its parallel in 20th century concepts of the
authentic self (Bishop & Scudder, 1996).
The authentic self, sensibly experienced in the drug
experience, demonstrates desirable personal actions,
which sensibly feel right, indicating they are most
important and meaningful to the individual, and, as
such, t within the personal belief system. This per-
sonal law framing belief commitments and action
proclaims an autonomous self (James, 1897/1979;
Benn, 1988) which feels real and authentic.
Similar to Jamess and Davys nitrous oxide expe-
riences, Cocteaus (1957) experience with opium cre-
ated connections between the self and the world,
connections which were not felt in ordinary circum-
stances. Movements tempo, experienced as subjec-
tive time, is slowed so that connections are sensed and
reection permitted: Everything one does in life,
even, love, occurs in an express train racing toward
death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while
it is still moving (p. 36). Opium accentuated internal
processes at a sensory level of awareness, the minds
processes feel expanded beyond usual connes:
Opium lightens the mind. It never makes one witty.
It spreads the mind out. It does not gather it to a
point (p. 100). Like nitrous oxide, however, the
choices incurred in the actions of these drugs, which
initially led to harmony, familiarity, and slowed
tempo, eventually become no choice at all when the
harmony transmuted into feelings of impotence and
enervation.
The wills choice, exemplied in repetitive drug rit-
uals, results in self-destruction, and transforms reality

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in ways that ultimately sever relations with others and
intensify feeling of isolation. Intense self-feelings
experienced by Crowley (1922) with cocaine created
feelings of mastery and superiority: I was Feeling
itself! I was all the possibilities of Feeling fullled to
the utmost (p. 28); and one cannot feel ones body,
yet one has the feeling that this passion is animal is
completely transmuted and utterly etherealized (p.
47). For Hendriks (1992), addicted to cocaine, actions
increased both feelings of speed and power: I can
move so much faster up here [near the ceiling]. Im
like a y buzzing around . . . I have all the strength in
the world. I never seem to tire (p. 55). Actions feel
etherealized, powerful, and unlimited.
Crowley contrasted heroins action with that of
cocaine; heroin induced inated self-feelings, charac-
terized by a sense of superiority to others, and a
transmutation of bodily feelings into spiritual
equivalents:

We felt ourselves crowned with colossal calm. We were mas-
ters; we had budded from nothingness into existence! . . .
our happiness was so huge that we could not bear
it; . . . ineffable mysteries must be expressed with sacramen-
tal action . . . The sense of our superiority to mankind was
constantly present. We were dignied beyond all words to
express (p. 60). The sensation was of innite power which
could afford innite deliberation. Will itself seemed to have
been abolished (pp. 6162). Crowley summarizes: With
cocaine, one is indeed master of everything; but everything
matters intensely. With heroin, the feeling of mastery
increases to such a point that nothing matters at all. (p. 62)

Feelings of universal benevolence translated into
feelings of moral indifference to others. Just as the
drug personies the desired actions and goals of the
individual, when choice becomes a ritualized pat-
tern, and action is experienced as compulsive, rather
than chosen; the self and drug become one: You are
no longer indulging in the speedball [cocaine and
heroin], youre Living it . . . You are a prisoner now,
and getting and absorbing the mix is your utmost
priority, next to breathing and actually higher than
eating, or for that matter anything else (Rem, 2000,
non-paginated).
Experiences with the hallucinogen Ketamine
describe the freedom found when the will feels vol-
untarily surrendered; when self-destruction is viewed
from an optimistic perspective: One can discard all
traces of ego awareness and individual volition [the
will] and still be more than one was before. The loss
of personality does not bring extinction . . . How else
can it be possible to drop the body, emotions and
mind and still exist as a self-aware entity in a realm
of innite and animate potential (Moore, 1982,
p. 281). Another narrative of ketamine experience
revealed that through dimensions of time and space
this little bit of existence expands into omniscient
realms . . . I have nally seen that existence has direc-
tion, a bias, a movement of a positive nature. Death
itself is the illusion, that the impossibility of nothing-
ness leaves us with innite possibility, never-ending
realization. Pain and evil are simply reference points
from which pleasure and beautycan [

sic

] be perpetu-
ated (Legofeel, 2000, non-paginated).
Movement that feels authentic, self-afrming, and
optimistic also is evident in Knapps (1996) experi-
ence with alcohol. She dubbed alcohol liquid self
transformation which acted to diminish the fear
of being without, being exposed without your
armor . . . [It expressed a] yearning for

something

,
something outside the self that will bring relief and
solace and well being (p. 55). Knapp linked such
transformation to dancing: the rhythm of the
music . . . gave me a sense of connection to my own
body, gave it permission to move, . . . There was a
sense of surrender, a melting into the shape of his [her
dancing partner] body and a sense of myself as pretty
and giddy and free (p. 75).
Drugs, such as alcohol, induce the feel of freedom,
to move beyond the connes of the body, the self and
everyday existence. Huxley (1954) wrote that such
transformation, which he personally experienced
with the hallucinogen peyote, revealed a human need.
Most men and women lead lives at the worst so pain-
ful, and at the best so monotonous, poor, and limited
that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend
themselves if only for a few minutes, is and has always
been one of the principal appetites of the soul (p. 62).
Hallucinogens like peyote by opening Huxleys
doors of perception, somehow capture this same
feeling of freedom, the free spirit whose movement
feels like not just the real me, but the moral senti-

Freedom and Resistance

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ment of the best me, expressed in Jamess will to
believe.

7

The feelings of the will described in
the drug narratives

The values revealed in these narratives of psychoac-
tive drug experiences emphasize the importance of
experiencing moral sentiments of the best me. These
feelings arise from active participation in creating and
transforming ones reality. Action and choice in the
form of attention to internal processes and intricacies
of the external environment demonstrate the feelings
of movement or motion described in Jamess (1890/
1981) concept of the will. Such feelings of movement
expressed in these drug narratives include: sensations
magnied in quality and power, and irresistible
action, novel discoveries (Davy, 1839/1972), feelings
of connection and slowed tempo of life (James, 1882;
Cocteau, 1957), order, legislation and harmony (De
Quincey, 1821/1956), feelings of mastery and superi-
ority, innite power and innite deliberation (Crow-
ley, 1922; Hendriks, 1992), dissolution of the will,
optimism and meaning (Moore, 1982; Legofeel,
2000), optimism, authenticity, a yearning for some-
thing beyond the self (Knapp, 1996). The meaning of
those actions arises from how the individual inter-
prets these experiences subjectively: how the individ-
ual values the choices and the feelings experienced in
those choices. Meaning is created rst at the sensory
experiential level.

8

This meaning assumes importance
because of its t within a broader belief system of that
individual and his or her sense of personal standards
and autonomy.
Autonomy, described here as the convergence
between feelings of freedom and resistance to its loss,
and a set of clearly dened beliefs or principles, indi-

7

In

The will to believe

, James (1897/1979) articulated a philos-
ophy which anticipated Huxleys conclusions; he acknowl-
edged the power of those subjective yearnings for something
more, those feelings of something missing in ordinary life,
which he called the craving of the heart to in fact create the
facts. He argued that faith, this sensible optimism in the
future, and in the individuals ability to participate in creating
that future, counterbalanced what he saw as a general pessi-
mism, which resulted from an overemphasis on intellectualism
in philosophy and on authoritarianism and materialism in
science.
The nightmare view of life has plenty of organic sources; but its
great reective source has at all times been the contradiction
between the phenomena of nature and the craving of the heart
to believe that behind nature there is a spirit whose expression
nature is. (pp. 4041)
The individual addicted to drugs cannot sustain a healing pro-
cess on the advances from todays neuroscience of the brain
and increasing precision in measures of physiological and
behaviour changes induced by drugs. As wonderful as these
scientic advances are in clarifying pharmacological conse-
quences, they can only provide partial answers to the addic-
tion puzzle. The individual is sustained by feelings and actions
that provide meaning for that individual. Opportunities to
experience and progress towards satisfying these cravings of
the heart, I believe, are central to nurses commitment to the
client.

8

James (1912/1976) claried in his later philosophy of radical
empiricism that immediate experience is pure, sensation undif-
ferentiated into subject or object. It is the wills movement, by
sorting sensations into object or subject, that creates meaning of
experiences for the individual:
Pure experience is the name which I gave to the immediate ux
of life which furnishes the material to our later reection with
its conceptual categories. Only new-born babes, or men in semi-
coma from sleep,

drugs

[italics added], illnesses, or blows, may
be assumed to have an experience pure in the literal sense of a

that

which is not yet any denite

what

, the ready to be all sorts
of whats; full both of oneness and of manyness, but in respects
that dont appear; changing throughout, yet so confusedly that
its phases interpenetrate and no points, either of distinction or
of identity, can be caught. Pure experience in this state is but
another name for feeling or sensation . . . Its purity is only a
relative term, meaning the proportional amount of unverbalized
sensation which it still embodies. (James, 1912/1976, p. 46)
Drugs which facilitate this pure experience free the potential
to experience the different, the novel, the authentic or the ideal,
unrealized in usual reality.

12

Mary Tod Gray

2007 The author. Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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8

, pp. 315

cates a sensory awareness of connections between
ones existence and the external environment, of con-
nections between the present self and some energy
source both within and beyond the self at a universal
level. This open, indeterminate future symbolizes the
possibility for positive change.

9

Autonomy equally, and almost paradoxically,
demands that choice follows paths of individuation
that might diverge from accepted norms and cultural
language. Both the choice to use drugs and the result-
ing loss of will demonstrate a motivation to be a full
participant in choice and its accompanying feel of
freedom, and a resistance to choices imposed by oth-
ers. If the individual can be guided to identify both
valued feelings of freedom and feelings of resistance,
he or she can begin to focus on the meaning of those
values, and their importance to the clients goals.
These values, of course, represent an important part
of the individuals belief system; as such, values are
the personal standards by which goals and goal attain-
ments are judged by their harshest critic: the individ-
ual. These values, because they are personal, carry a
signicant feeling component. Feelings of resistance,
when examined within the therapeutic setting, signal
energy available for goal-directed action.

Limitations of the phenomenal will
in addiction

Several limitations emerge from this examination of
the phenomenal will in addiction. The rst is one that
was lodged at Jamess philosophy in general: an
excessive reliance on subjectivity and introspection to
the neglect of objective social dimensions (Taylor &
Wozniak, 1996). Public outcries from families, social
institutions, and health professionals, whose function
and values are jeopardized by the destructive conse-
quences of drug addiction, lend weight to this criti-
cism and to their demand for immediate solutions to
the addiction problem. Neurobiological studies add
objective support to the destructive effect of psycho-
active drugs on our most human capacity, the cogni-
tive centres in the neocortex and orbitofrontal cortex
which regulate the will (Gjelsvik, 1999; Lyvers, 2000;
Volkrow & Fowler, 2000).
Yet illness transpires within the individual, and it is
within the individual that meaning from the experi-
ence is gleaned, and healing initiated. James, edu-
cated as a scientist and physician, whose brother died
of alcoholism, was well aware of the outcomes of
addiction and its social context. Yet in his philosophy,
he asserted that a greater emphasis on subjective
experience was needed to counter the prevailing
reductionist traditions in science and philosophy. The
phenomenal will, as experienced in feelings of free-
dom and resistance discussed in this paper, is one
piece in the larger picture of addiction necessary to
help the individual explore that interior experience
to nd meaning in his or her recovery; the nurse who
understands the phenomenal will is better prepared
to assist in the clients journey.
The second limitation is linked to the rst by its
focus on the human condition. Such a focus requires
that the healthcare professional be able to intertwine
the individuals drug experiences with a larger under-
standing of the wills role in addiction and the inten-
sity of those feelings of movement which express
freedom and resistance to its loss. Such an examina-
tion of the subjective will provides no immediate rec-
ipe, no expeditious or cost-effective solution. Instead,
it demands reective time in which to expand under-
standing of individual experience. It demands a con-
centration on individual values to struggle with the
moral overtones which have historically accompanied
drug addiction (Lenson, 1995; Walton, 2001; Acker,
2002). These moral overtones centre on the concept
of choice that express the phenomenal will. To strug-
gle with human values afrms the meaning which
arises from subjective experience. Yet with increasing
numbers of addicted individuals, decreased health-
care manpower and resources devoted to addiction
treatment, and the historical distance which health-
care professionals established between their practice
and addicts in the 20th century (Acker, 2002), the call
for reective time in client therapy seems unrealistic.

9

Such openness to the future creates unlimited opportunities for
individual human agency (Watkins, 1999), yet also entails
considerable anxiety as rituals and traditions which guide an
individual through lifes experiences in familiar sequence are
diminished or discarded (Wilshire, 1998).

Freedom and Resistance

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The fast pace of life in general, and a healthcare sys-
tem inadequate to meet growing needs demand a
quick albeit transitory x to the addicts problem;
such a x is inconsistent with a focus on where addic-
tion ts with being human, and, similar to addiction
itself, fosters a compulsive ritual of fragmented care.
A third limitation arises from the drug narratives
illustrating the phenomenal will in this paper. The
narratives writers, whether professional or amateur,
chose to capture their subjective drug experiences in
often lyrical prose to communicate their impressions
and the meaning gleaned from those experiences. The
question might be posed as to the relevance of these
experiences to ordinary addicted individuals seen in
a public clinics or hustling for drugs on the street.
Writers do attempt to capture something universal in
the human condition to which their intended audi-
ence can relate. My feeling is that the feelings of
freedom and resistance expressed in these narratives
will resonate with individuals addicted to drugs, and
perhaps articulate for them what the intensity of their
feelings or the paucity of their language or concepts
precludes. An examination of the relevance of these
ideas for ordinary individuals living a drug problem
would be an interesting area for future research.

10

Conclusion

Feelings of the will are embodied human experiences.
In the subjective narratives of addiction, drugs are the
conduit by which individuals experience the wills
feelings of freedom: the sensible actions of unlimited
movement, of power, and of optimism, or the
voluntary surrender of choice and control to immedi-
ate sensations because of the often positive, self-
afrming and connecting nature of those sensations
by which the best self is judged. The drug experiences
thus highlight both the wills power in individuation
and in connection. These subjective experiences
indicate the importance of both, but not the pre-
eminence of one to the exclusion of other. As James
noted in his nal philosophy, in some ways we are
unique and separate; in some ways we are intercon-
nected (James, 1912/1976). Both must be equally
acknowledged and respected. Feelings of resistance
arise when the wills movement towards individua-
tion feels blunted or constrained by social norms or
healthcare doctrines that weight compliance over
individual values.
The phenomenal will, evinced in the drug experi-
ence: its surge of individual power or voluntary sur-
render of that power provides substantive content for
a therapeutic dialogue which emanates from the per-
sonal values and goals of the individual client rather
than those of the healthcare provider or current
healthcare doctrine. The nurse because of his or her
professional choices often embodies consensual
norms of the healthcare system and society which
vary from the addicted clients.
The interior view of the clients subjective will
helps the nurse to reect on how embodied feelings
are valued, a reection endorsed by James (1890/
1981, 1897/1979) and several current philosophers
(Elster, 1999; Solomon, 1999). Such evaluations ener-
gize movement towards personally meaningful goals.
Concepts generally lack the richness of perceptual
experience, possibly one of drugs allures that cannot
be replicated in ordinary reality. Nurses who are
aware of the values embodied in the wills sensory
experiences can help the client to create the subjec-
tively realized links between vision and the action,
principles and movement that both honour and afrm
the individual. Nurses facilitate the opportunities and
permission for the individual to resume the power of
his or her development, so often experienced as lost
in the world of stone cited in the initial poem. Per-
sonally meaningful standards support sustainable
individual growth. Growth is sustainable when the
individual develops what feel like safe connections
between personal values and those standards estab-
lished in the surrounding culture.

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