When I came in, one of the first things I noticed was that Second Step had the word insanity in it. I’ve heard others talk about this and what a hard time they had accepting that word. The truth is that I wasn’t a bit appalled by that word. I already thought I was crazy. After all, no matter what went on in my life before I drank, alcohol had finished the job.
And, what does this step say? That a higher power could restore us to sanity. Doesn’t say would. However, if we work our way through the steps, we come to the announcement in the Tenth Step that our sanity has returned. We’ve been restored. Or, maybe this is a first time event. But then, I find out that the word “insanity” refers only to my drinking. That’s good, though. Because that’s exactly why I came here. I wanted to get over my having to drink and this step tells me that it is exactly what happened. I’ve been placed in a position where I no longer want to drink or even think about a drink.
Why bring this up? Because I was talking to a friend of mine, who said that his meeting today was on insanity. Not the insanity of drinking, but the insane things we do in our lives, which eventually could lead us back to the insanity of drinking. The example he gave me of one of his own actions brought this home to me. Made me stop and think.
He said he had been trying to help a family of “sober” alcoholics for a number of weeks and they have been driving him crazy; literally. He said they don’t drink and haven’t gone to meetings in years, but are out of control. He ended up hating and resenting these people and the result was that he was beginning to isolate. He said, while the meeting today was going on, that he suddenly realized that he had a pattern of doing this kind of thing.
He no sooner finished telling me this, when the phone rang and it was another friend, calling long distance, because he couldn’t get hold of his sponsor. His problem related to another person in sobriety, who couldn’t or wouldn’t mind his own business and was taking his inventory in a negative way and attempting to take over his practice.
After I hung up, we sat and talked about this kind of “insanity”, which is a result of letting our character defects run rampant. Bill W. talks about this kind of dry drunk, where we go on an emotional binge. We’re not drinking, but we end up with emotional hangovers as a result. Left unchecked, we could end up drinking again.
The answer to all of this is the practice of eternal vigilance. It means talking to others, mainly a sponsor, and letting them know what’s going on with us. An inventory of our defects and using the steps in our lives on a daily basis.
My take on all of this is that this kind of insanity generally creeps up on us. Otherwise we would probably cut it off before it started. From my own experience, I can recognize what was going on. I’ve certainly had my fair share of this stuff.
Oh, yeah, there was something else, which caused me to write this. While we were sitting and talking about this, we were also talking to another alcoholic, who is struggling to accept his alcoholism. When he left he was obviously not convinced. With his history, that is precisely what the Second Step meant about the real insanity we suffer from. I don’t know if this helped anyone else. I know that it did me.
As I said, I was thinking about this.