More: Alcoholism (Continued)
C: Sanity and insanity are defined as the ability to see the truth. It's defined as wholeness of mind. The whole mind can always see the truth about a subject. A mind that is not whole, from time to time, cannot see the truth about the subject. And there's different degrees of insanity.
It's kind of like if we should take... a whole pie and put it out here on the plate in front of us. As long as that pie is there, all of it, it is whole in its entirety. But if we take a piece away from it, then it's only ninety percent there. If we take another piece away from it, then it's only eighty percent there. We take another piece away from it, then it's only seventy percent there. So there's different degrees of wholeness of the pie.
Now, insanity doesn't mean that you're all gone. It simply means you're not quite all there. (laughter) A pie that is thirty percent gone is most certainly not all gone. It's just not all there. Insanity means the same thing in the human mind. Most people are insane about something.
Most people cannot see the truth about something in their lives. If we could see the truth about everything, then we would be absolutely, completely whole human beings. But most people have certain areas of their life that they can't see the truth.
We find that most alcoholics in most of their life and most of their dealings can see the truth about most subjects. Most of us can work. Most of us can make a living. Most of us can do the things necessary to do. But when it comes to alcohol, we seem to be strangely insane. (p. 38, par. 3)
We cannot always see the truth about alcohol, and we believe a lie about alcohol. Therefore, when it comes to alcohol itself, we are insane. It doesn't mean we're crazy. If you're crazy, you're all gone. You're locked up in a nut house to protect you and society. But if you're insane, it just simply mean-that you can't see the truth about certain matters.
