Insanity

 

For some reason, in the last couple years, I've heard a certain word being thrown around on the news, on TV shows, on the radio, and at recovery meetings. 

The word is insanity. And this word has gained a lot of momentum. You've probably heard this word used in the following sentence: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

The way this word is being used isn't based off of the Webster dictionary, but is based out of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. But, somehow, the definition has been lost through watered down attempts to make it more likeable and easy. Most likely, the definition was developed by somebody who thought it sounded nice and made sense, but it isn't the context in which the writers of the Big Book placed it in.

In the book, the word insanity plainly means: a lack of proportion and/or the inability to think straight.

And here's why I think the word has been taken out of context: most everybody experiences the Big Book form of the word insanity. Most everyone experiences at some point a lack of proportion in their ability to think and make decisions, and most everyone experiences at some point the inability to think straight. But, the writers of the Big Book weren't talking about everybody. They were talking specifically to people whose minds were being consumed by what they called "a mental obsession." 

And this mental obsession is what prevented me from ever experiencing freedom.

Of course, we can expand this and include just about anything in the realm of the mental obsession, but my experience happens to be with alcoholism, so I'll stay on that topic. 

Up until about five years ago, and some months, I was driven by a powerful mental compulsion to drink. It's all I could think about in my spare time. When I was at work, the drive to drink would get me through the day. And it was the same when I wasn't working. It got so bad over time that no matter what I was doing, the obsession to drink would saturate everything I did. My decisions would always be weighed up against how they would affect my ability to drink like I wanted to. Whether it was family gatherings, important commitments, or just coffee with a friend, I always saw commitments through the lens of an alcoholic mind. 

And that's the working definition of the word insanity, based out of the Big Book. It has nothing to do with doing the same thing over again, expecting a different result. It's much simpler and subtler than that. 

When the mental obsession to drink is what drives me to make decisions that have nothing to do with alcohol, my insanity is at its worst. And that's what my self will looked like. My self will was hijacked by a powerful compulsion to "take the edge off," except taking the edge off was a delusion. Usually, when people say things like "take the edge off," they're talking about having a beer or a cocktail. But a beer or a cocktail was never my experience and never my desire. In fact, having a anything sounds ridiculous to me even today. 

And when I'm in the fury of this sort of mental obsession, it's impossible to experience anything spiritual. And so, I'll try to conjure up some sort of spiritual experience - a self-made emotional high that I can put my stamp on and call worship. I can arrange these emotional highs in order to fit into groups of spiritual people. I can start using the same language, talking about the same things, and even doing the same things, but never really having the same experience they are having. Why? Because I'm not being driven by the same forces that are at work in them. 

Maybe, just maybe, this happens in other compulsions besides drinking. Maybe this happens in the compulsion to eat, or lie, or gamble, or sleep with prostitutes. I don't know because my greatest compulsion has always been to drink until I reach a state of oblivion and blackout.

If I use the Big Book to define the word insanity, then I can also use it to define the word sane. It would be: well-balanced and the ability to think straight. 

The third step in the twelve is: made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.

The second step is: came to believe in a power greater than ourselves to restore us to sanity.

Under the guise of religion and spiritual make-believe, I can believe all I want about God and still be insane. I can adopt the language of spirituality and still be insane. I can talk a good talk and act as if I'm the most self-sacrificing guy on the planet, and still be insane. 

But the thing I can't do when I'm insane is, turn it over. 

If insanity is what's driving me, it's impossible to let go of my will, much less my life. When the rubber meets the road, it's my way or bust. 

And it's no secret. It'll seep through my decisions at work, at home, and with family and friends. It'll show through the way I manipulate the religious people I'm around, and I'm really good at spiritual manipulation. 

And so, the only chance I have - ever - of surrendering my will to the character (or force, or power) I call God, is to have the ability to think straight. And unfortunately, as long as the mental obsession to drink is there, I will not experience what's on the other side of surrender. There's no need to surrender anything when my will is the last word on everything. 

But here's the key. In order to get to the point where I can be sane, I have to get completely insane. Not a little insane. Not just a little quirky. Not just a little screwed up in the head. I have to get so insane that circumstances force me to believe there's something better out there other than that thing inside me called my will. I have to be unconvinced that my will works. 

One of the awful results of insanity is, I will never look inside myself as the cause of whatever troubles I may be facing. It will always be someone or something's fault but mine. I will constantly look for an outside source to pin my problems on, which fall perfectly in line with my mental obsession to take another drink . . . and another . . . and another. And eventually, the mental compulsion to drink leads to a physical craving for alcohol. In other words, I'll drink to drink. I won't be drinking to escape anymore, or to ease my emotional pains, or to feel better. My body will have developed a craving that's paramount to any sort of mental fixation. And once that line is crossed, alcoholic death becomes a real scenario. 

Today, while I don't think straight all the time, I have the ability to think straight. Before, I didn't even have that ability. So, I'm able to have the life that I want today. I'm able to find solutions to all of my problems. I'm able to turn my will and my life over to the God I believe in, and not the one other people want me to believe in.