Repeating past failures and expecting different results.
 

It has been pointed out that the actual insanity being talked about is the insanity of my sick thinking that ... I can take one drink and stop.

Also, “Advanced insanity is doing the same thing over and over again knowing what will happen, but doing it anyway."

BE WELL

I agree that that is what is meant about insanity.

then doin the work on lookin at me and my life I saw....
everything about my existence was insane!!
I remember hearing insane people don't walk around sayin theyre insane.
I never even thought I was.

I repeatedly tried to control my drinking expecting different results each time!!

It came down in the end to parting ways with alcohol to produce new results!! :)

I don't think what you describe is insanity, even if the quote is attributed to a great thinker like Einstein. To me it is just hope trumping experience. Sort of like what one may have when contemplating a second, or third+, marriage.

I think getting sober means a willingness to change. I think relapsing can become a pattern. Many get stuck in that "purgatory" if you will…not drinking but not fully committed to leaving that aspect of their lives behind. That fulcrum is the crux of sobriety. I think chronic relapsing is simply a way of drinking differently, an attempt to mitigate the problem but keeping options open. Trying to live sober when one is miserable and burdened with the feeling of being deprived of something is a tough place to be.

For me, it took the realization that I wasn't depriving myself of anything, nothing was being "taken away". I needed to look at where my life was headed square on and realize absolutely no one else could do this for me. It wasn't something I could delegate I had to assume full responsibility for what I was doing to myself.

People without the affliction might not understand why we cling so tightly to something that is harming us. We have to realize that we are built differently, and that that sort of thinking doesn't serve us.

My AV voice keeps telling me 'eh- you can have ONE. I won't get you drunk off of ONE, silly."

How many times did I fall for that old ruse again that I could moderate? It really is insane! Just consider it a foregone conclusion that that ship has sailed. It's much too late for us to be able to moderate again. If we have to think about how much we're drinking, or planning to drink, because we tend to drink too much, then the wisest option is to not drink at all. Someone else on SR put it another way. Something like, "People who are able to moderate don't need to think about drinking."

Countless mornings swearing off alcohol forever just to be fall into its clutches again in the evening - that's insanity.

[QUOTE=GetMeOut;4854021]How many times did I fall for that old ruse again that I could moderate? It really is insane! Just consider it a foregone conclusion that that ship has sailed. It's much too late for us to be able to moderate again. If we have to think about how much we're drinking, or planning to drink, because we tend to drink too much, then the wisest option is to not drink at all. Someone else on SR put it another way. Something like, "People who are able to moderate don't need to think about drinking."[/QUOTE]


That took me too long to recognize that thus delaying my return to some form of sanity. Like when we try to control something we’ve already lost control.

BE WELL