I worked as a paramedic/Firefighter for many years, so personally I always initially started with one of the legal definitions of insanity and defining it as a danger to myself or others when working with a newcomer or a sponsee. While you were drinking, did you drive? did you endanger your own or others lives? While a newcomer may sometimes be stubborn about admitting themselves insane, I have never had a single person that was an alcoholic be able to refute that definition nor deny that at some point in their drinking careers they had not put themselves and others in harms way. Otherwise the word insanity had proven to be a hurdle for some of my sponsees that was tedious to get past, as defiance is the outstanding characteristic of the alcoholic, and we are the only people I know that can look down on others while laying in a pool of urine in the gutter.

What I am saying is in some cases our denial runs deep, I find it easier to break piecemeal on occasion.

Later as we go through the book, I elaborate on that to see if they can "identify" with the characteristics of the real alcoholic, the strange mental twist that precedes the first drink, see if they identify with the story of the jaywalker, and to identify that even after a period of sobriety picking up the first drink leads to the well known stages of a spree, hence: doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.

It comes in conjunction with the second step, where we come to believe a power greater then ourselves can restore us to sanity, in order for us to pass step two, we have to admit we were insane, going over the first 60 pages of the Big Book with a sponsor usually helps answer that question to one's satisfaction.

When we become Sober, as opposed to sober, the reason there is a difference between the two, is we don't just mean "not drinking" in AA we mean not insane or:

• not affected by a chemical substance (especially alcohol)
• cause to become sober; "A sobering thought"
• grave: dignified and somber in manner or character and committed to keeping promises; "a grave God-fearing man"; "a quiet sedate nature"; "as sober as a judge"; "a solemn promise"; "the judge was solemn as he pronounced sentence"
• sober up: become more realistic; "After thinking about the potential consequences of his plan, he sobered up"

and especially we mean:



It also comes in handy doing the sexual/relationship inventory later in step 4 that's where true insanity usually reared it's ugly head with doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results (teasing---humor)



-- Edited by AGO on Thursday 4th of March 2010 12:44:55 AM

Many of us also have a deep seated fear of change and that is why we are prone to numb ourselves to tolerate the world which is ever changing. Hence, we are stubborn and defiant as the big book says and I believe prone to doing some unhealthy things over and over again just to avoid changing. That is why the symbol of the triangle represents change. Change is what AA does for us when we cannot do it for ourselves. It buffers us and teaches us how to go through normative changes in life without drinking. That's just another perspective on the saying you brought up, but of course it directly relates to alcoholism in the ways other's mentioned above.

Mark

Hey Steve!   my 2 cents  on this....We can find that the definition of insanity goes even deeper than "expecting different results".We make same mistakes over and over even when we know what the results will be in or out of recovery..(hang in a bar ,drink coke and think we dont have to use alcohol,stay in a relationship that we know is not good for us,hang with people that use and think it won't affect us,even when we know people .places and things are triggers for the results we will most likely put into play)..We may hurt so bad we don't care about the consequences or figuring it may be worth it in some sense..restoration to sanity is described as 'CHANGING TO A POINT WHERE ADDICTION AND ITS ACCOMPANYING INSANITY ARE NO LONGER CONTROLLING OUR LIVES.We dont have trouble identifying with the sanity in our lives when we compare our drinking with our early recovery,our early recovery with some sober time and some sober time with long term recovery.Its a process that changes over time.Expecting different results is sound but describes the symptom rather than the cause.   For me getting out of fantasy land and learning to live in reality and exchanging old untrue beliefs for new ones that are true and the "process of coming to believe  has helped restore  me to sanity. Remember this is just some things that have helped me..Have a blessed day!!......