Spiral into hole, characterised by pain and turmoil (8)

'spiral' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?

'hole characterised by pain and turmoil' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'hole' could be 'pit' (a pit is a large hole) and 'pit' is present in the answer.
'and' could be 'n' (common abbreviation for 'and') and 'n' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'sake' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

'into' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?