Part One

     Insanity is the most misunderstood word in the big book. We hear so many different definitions of its meaning that the net result is confusion. Now, at last, we can study the simple truth of what Bill said, and what he meant. To arrive at this truth we must study the word insanity as Bill Wilson used it in the Big Book. As we correctly study insanity, the fear of the word goes away. We also find that the truth gives us far greater reason to have a sponsor, work the steps, and to trust others for guidance.

     Hearing so many opinions of what insanity means is baffling to a student of the big book, because Bill tells us exactly what meaning he gives the word insanity the very first time he uses it in the big book (page 37). It is necessary that we understand Bill's definition because Bill is the person writing the book. He is the author who is using words to try to transfer an idea from his mind to our mind. If we don't know what Bill meant by insanity then we cannot accurately understand the big book. Worse still we cannot possibly work steps one & two or make an intelligent decision in step three. So it is important that we understand insanity correctly.

     A word is just a symbol to convey a thought from one person's mind to another person's mind. This cannot be done unless both writer and reader

use the same definition and have the same understandings of the word used. So we will start with the paragraph where Bill first uses insanity in the book. Then, one word and one line at a time, we will look at exactly what Bill said, and what he meant, when he used the word insanity.

     One additional bit of background is necessary at this point. Up to this point Bill had used very definite words such as "precisely how we have recovered." He said, we will tell you "in detail." And further on; "clear-cut directions are given." But this changes when Bill gets to the place where he uses the word insanity. There Bill quits using precise, specific language and starts using everyday language, or street talk. It is in this manner that he uses insanity. We will be referring to the lines in the big book where Bill first uses insanity so we will put them in a box (below) for easy reference.

     Let us look at the words in the box. The word "whatever" means "it doesn't matter." When my wife says she is going out for ice cream and asked me what kind I want and I answer "whatever," I am saying "it does not matter" or "I don't care." The same is true here with Bill speaking. He is saying it does not matter what the precise meaning of the word may be. Because Bill tells us he is not speaking precisely we know that to look up the meaning in the dictionary would be misleading. Only precise meanings are given in the dictionary and Bill is not speaking precisely here. Now we can paraphrase Bill by saying "It doesn't matter what the dictionary meaning of the word may be." Bill isn't using a dictionary definition and he has told us so. The word plain means without nuance, without hidden meanings. It is simple and unobstructed. We can again paraphrase Bill by saying "It doesn't matter what the dictionary meaning of the word is, we call this plain insanity (street talk)." Now for the word insanity itself.

     The next sentence is perhaps the most important sentence in the Big Book because it is in this sentence that Bill tells us his definition of insanity. He says; "How can such a lack of proportion, of the ability to think straight, be called anything else?" So Bill's definition of insanity is "lack of proportion, of the ability to think straight." We can now accurately paraphrase Bill by saying: "It doesn't matter what the dictionary definition of the word may be, we call this simply a lack of proportion, of the ability to think straight."

     This makes sense. Now we can lay to rest all the different ideas of insanity. We all meant well but the fact remains that Bill's definition of the word is the definition we must use if we are to understand Bill and the big book correctly.

     When the question of defining insanity came up we found that no one had made a serious effort to give us a valid definition of the word as Bill Wilson used it in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Single examples and personal opinions were insufficient. We saw that it was Bill's definition that we need to use because he is the author of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. If we were to understand the Big Book, we had to understand the author, not what some tom, dick and harry joked about on the street corners of AA. The Big Book is where the word originates as it is used in AA, and the way AA uses it is what is so important. Once we got through this wall of denial about where to find the meaning of the word insanity we very quickly got results.

     Bill says that insanity is lack of proportion, and the preceding paragraph tells us that this lack of proportion is due to repression. Repression is the hiding from memory of unwanted or unpleasant thoughts. In the case of the alcoholic these losses are the tremendous losses we would incur if we drank. The story of Jim the car salesman proved that at times the repression was not complete and rationalization and justification was necessary to place us in a state of mind where it was better to drink than not drink. The account of Fred the accountant showed a complete mental blank in the mind where the losses of drinking should have been so that we found no reason at all to "not drink."

     Perhaps the most quoted of all is the analogy of the jaywalker where insanity is depicted as taking the same action over and over -- always expecting different results. But this was shown to be the recurring repression and it followed that the same decision had to be made over and over because the same lack of evidence about losses from drinking kept recurring.

     The time will come in every alcoholic's life that he will be under severe emotional stress. These are the times when we do not know what is best for us to do. It is against these times that we build our insurance by going to meetings, sponsoring others and being sponsored, helping others, and above all, by working the steps. There need be no fear of a moment of disproportionate thinking if we are actively doing the things that have proved successful for millions of alcoholics over a half century of time. As we learn to trust others to care for us when we cannot care for ourselves we may come to see that this is the primary way in which "God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves." We are privileged to know these truths while we are still on the human part of our spiritual trip. We are much blessed.