Ah, that question of sanity. What is it? Do I become sane, as a result of this program? That’s exactly what a friend and I talked about today, as he was discussing this with people he worked with.
An old timer once said that no one would know how crazy he was, as long as he didn’t take a drink. If he did, all bets were off.
Dr. Silkworth discussed “sanity” early in the BB. He described it as a psychic change. The 12th Step talks about it as a spiritual awakening. But does that mean we’re still not crazy?
I liked the Doctor’s illustration in telling how much one man had changed. He said he was so different, after a year sober, that he didn’t even recognize him. I remember, after reading that, that I got this hope within me that maybe I could be just like that man.
In between Steps 9 and 10 sanity, which was offered in the 2nd Step, is described. It tells us that, having worked the first nine Steps, we will have stopped fighting everyone and everything, for by this time sanity will have returned. And then it describes it. We’ve stopped fighting alcohol. The insanity of drinking. We’re placed in a position of neutrality, as far as alcohol is concerned. The desire, the obsession, the compulsion to drink are gone.
How did that happen? It began way back in the 2nd Step, when we became willing to do what we really had never done before. I came here to stop drinking, period. I had no knowledge of what this program was about. Just that people in here didn’t drink. I didn’t have the slightest clue of what sobriety really was.
It was then I was introduced to the concept of leading a spiritual life or die an alcoholic death. Well, I didn’t want to drink again, so I reluctantly became willing to live a spiritual life. It was a struggle in the beginning. My willingness was very limited to say the least. But gradually I began to surrender and accept. It was not an overnight thing. Analyzing everything, arguing with myself and sometimes others, being a know it all, thinking I was intellectually superior, plus all my character defects. These were the hurdles I had to overcome to get to “the other side” of a life in the spirit through the exercise of these 12 Steps.
And there it is; “sanity”.
Is that all? No. There’s more. But this is enough for now. It’s enough for me that I have been relieved of the thought and desire to drink. Have been ever since I surrendered. Still an alcoholic, but restored to sanity, just as the 2nd Step said.