The Insanity of Addiction: The Twelve Steps

There’s an old saying we’re all familiar with: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” It is largely attributed to one of the more brilliant minds in history, Albert Einstein.

A little research on the internet will tell you that it wasn’t Einstein who said it, but actually Mark Twain.

A little more research will tell you that it wasn’t Twain, but Benjamin Franklin.

And a few more hours of research will yield that the quote isn’t attributable to anyone, but that doesn’t make it any less relevant, especially when taken to describe substance abuse and the addiction to which it leads, and twelve-step philosophy supports this.

Using the Same Drugs Over and Over

The twelve steps affirm that insanity is entertaining the thought of that next drink or high. The twelve steps exist primarily and profoundly because addiction is, in and of itself, an exercise in constancy. It is the habitual and growingly dependent escape into action – or inaction – that breeds complacency and stagnancy. Furthermore, it is the ever-present desire to escape.

This may be readily apparent to the beholder, but not the user. No, addiction will forever bring about the same results – dependency, the gradual destruction of physical and mental faculties, the dissolution of meaningful relationships, a loss of one’s sense of self, and perhaps even death – but the addict will believe otherwise.

The insanity of the addict is the assumption that each high, each foray into the world of substance abuse, will bring about a different result, a better result than the one currently presenting itself.

But it won’t. It never does. And the user won’t see this until he bottoms out.

Finding Sanity amid the Insanity of Addiction

After days, months, years, decades of addiction, everything will look the same. Drug and alcohol addiction will prove a haze occluding the opportunity of possibility, the opportunity that things might be different if a different course is taken.

Sometimes, this requires hitting bottom, requires finding an end to the pit that seems to extend forever.

Whatever the reason, sanity comes in realizing that drug and alcohol addiction have gotten the user nowhere; it comes in realizing that no matter how many times the action was repeated, the results were always the same. And it’s this realization – this twelve-step epiphany that entertaining the thought of your next fix is an exercise in self-destruction – that can allow for growth, for addiction treatment, for freedom from the depths to which addiction can sink an individual.

For freedom from the bottomless pit.

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then sanity is realizing the fallacy in this and having the courage to start anew and find a new path.