Achieving Sanity

Many factors affect my sanity. Maintaining a level of sanity is complicated and difficult. Or so I thought.

When I reviewed my sanity, context seemed to matter. A change in context can be crazy-making. I function fully at work, maintaining balance and poise no matter what, then go home and become furious in an instant with any small thing that is not as I think it should be.

The time of the day affects my sanity. I can start the day sane. By noon, for no apparent reason, I can be off the charts crazy.

Moods and attitudes alter my sanity. I can change my attitude from gratitude to fear, and my sanity whipsaws in sync. And mood swings throughout the day cycle me through periods of sanity and insanity.

My sanity and soundness of my thinking go up and down depending on communication inputs. The other day I was conversing with another AA and felt grounded and sane when talking about AA. As I left my friend, I saw a newspaper headline that completely set me off. I was okay talking about AA Program values; reading a headline, not so much.

And I realized I could be sane and insane at the same time. I can be sane in one part of my life and completely off the rails in another. My wife heard another lawyer describe my negotiating style as collaborative and gentle; she blurted out, where is that guy when he gets home?

Completing Step Two, I believed I could be restored to sanity, and thinking about Step Twelve I felt I should be sane in all my affairs, all parts of my life. I should be restored to sanity throughout the day, in all contexts, maintaining my sanity regardless of inputs or moods.

But that was not my experience.

I was doing something wrong. I needed to change, and my first thought was, “What an order! I cannot go through it. It is too hard and too complicated.”

I balked.

At an AA meeting that night I looked around. I knew many of the old-timers at the meeting demonstrated steady sanity throughout the day. I asked myself, “Am I so different? Something worked for them; it should work for me.”

I talked with them, and they said, “prayer and meditation habits were an important part of engendering sanity.” They were right. I recalled the periods of sanity I had achieved in the past months and realized those periods correlated to my morning and evening meditation and prayer habits.

I reenergized my meditation and prayer habits. Increasing sanity levels were restored in all my affairs. The discipline of taking time to pray and meditate was the key.

I thought maintaining sanity would be hard and complicated; I was wrong. It was easy and straightforward. It did, however, require some discipline.