Insanity is often described as doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. When I worked for a fairly large Fortune 500 company, I had a boss that said this every meeting it seemed (expecting different results I guess), which was ironic because he himself was modeling insanity as he was talking about it. However, it is often overlooked that addicts do try some things differently to no avail. We typically do believe “it will be different this time” or “what happened last time won’t happen this time.” However, no all addicts do the same thing again and again per se.
We do change some of our specific behaviors, mostly minor changes but changes nonetheless. And when we do make this minor changes, we expect drastically different results (always for the better). Rarely are any of these changed specific behaviors yield positive drastic results. Rather, we discover that the result was the same. Sometimes we even make drastic changes expecting different results only to find ourselves on the other side of the road or the other side of the pendulum swing with the same results.
Many times we accidentally discover easier and “better” (=less risk) ways to act out. Then this change yields a deceiving “positive” response in the sense that we don’t get caught or we’ve become better at managing our spouse’s complaint levels or a better way to manipulate our spouse. So instead of escaping into reality and truth, we become experts and masters of deception and delusion. Becoming more entrenched we lose reality even more.
Instead I do need to admit that I am powerless. I need to admit that I have a problem. Not only do I need to admit this once, but I need to admit it monthly, weekly, daily, even moment by moment. This is the first step out of the darkness into the light. It is, as Patrick Carnes says, the beginning of healing. “Ironically, accepting our illness becomes the very doorway to finding and keeping what we wanted all along.”
