Before I say anything else, I want to be clear about the word insane. I don’t mean it clinically. I mean the specific insanity of choosing myself over and over when I already know it will cost me connection, integrity, and peace. It’s a spiritual definition that I hold for my own conduct. Depression, trauma, and emotions nobody chose are not moral failures, and I’m not measuring anyone else by this.

The Steps tie insanity to selfishness and fear, and I’ve understood that more than I could explain it. Alcoholism ends in death, so for me this isn’t a figure of speech.

More than twenty years ago I joined a men’s Bible study. I was the guy with the ink and the bike, and these were clean-cut men who looked like they had it together. Within a few weeks I saw they were no different from me. Same struggles with identity, marriage, kids, everything. Mine was just tattooed on my arms, my emotions and principles in ink where I couldn’t look away.

My teacher, Bill Dogterom, says you can’t be spiritually mature without being emotionally mature at the same time. I was trained to ignore my emotions, and he teaches that they’re gifts. Anger shows us a boundary violation. Fear helps us identify a threat. Grief helps us process loss. When I never listened to them, they leaked out sideways as irritability, defensiveness, and my ego needing to be right. I called that my attitude problem. Maybe it was fear with nobody listening to it.

I used to think I loved whatever made me feel good. Now I know love costs something. The Greek and Hebrew have many words for it, agape and chesed among them, and every one is about what you give and how long you stay. AA calls it service, unity, and recovery. Desire dressed up as love is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Then there’s knowing better and doing it anyway. Paul wrote about the good he wanted to do and didn’t, and that has been my story too. Knowing more never fixed it. What helped was thoughts taken captive, gratitude sought out daily, other people, and a God bigger than my beliefs about Him. I manage the bent toward selfishness, and I’m also held while I do it. That’s why I call it a daily reprieve.

I’ve watched love work in my marriage, in raising my kids, and in the rooms of AA. I don’t believe in it as a theory. I’ve witnessed it.

So here is where I’ve landed, for now. Not loving is insane, in the way I’ve described. But as I wrote this I noticed something else. Judgment is my trap. The same standard that keeps me honest can turn into one more thing I beat myself with, or hold over someone else. Sanity is a direction I’m walking, and I hold it with grace.