Despite the volatile nature of my pregnant ramblings, every so often I am inspired by the most laughable of situations; the sort of completely ridiculous happenings that force me to stop short in my tracks and stand dumbfounded just long enough to think out loud with the most enormous, sarcastic half-giggling smile from ear to ear: “what the hell?!” One such happening would be the ever-old and ever-new emergence of those tidbits of insanity that life inevitably throws ones way.

Albert Einstein is attributed with the most wonderful definition of insanity that I have ever come across and the one to which I refer in mentioning the re-occurrence of those “what the hell” kind of moments:

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

It will come of no surprise to anyone of us that the world is full of insane people. There are always those unconscious beings who, however book smart or street savvy they may be, should nonetheless be counted among the most ignorant and blatantly brainless individuals on the face of the planet. Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to converse however briefly with one such individual who actually has the audacity to question the validity of time-tested and proven programs which provide the weak and addicted among us with the strategies necessary to make serious changes in their lives.

Let me explain. The person of whom I write is more willing to watch his son make an absolute mess of his life and his family’s (and possibly lose both) rather than encourage him to seek assistance with his addiction. Errantly he believes that his son should have everything he needs to overcome his issues on his own from within, by mere “resolution” and the sheer “force of will”. In fact, this father is so convinced of it, that upon hearing the news that his son had once again f*#ked up, he sat in absolute ignorant shock and utter surprise as if it should not be happening, since his son had already “resolved on his own”, with the help of no-one, to steer clear of all such activity. Come on people! What the hell?! Wake the F@#K up! And they label me insane!

I am, by no means trying to be insensitive. We have all “been there” at one point in time during our lives. But I am a firm believer that if you TRULY love someone, you DO NOT create a rosy picture of him/her in order to explain away his/her guilt or somehow water down his/her responsibility, and you DO NOT continue to nurture unrealistic expectations of his/her “will power” or the strength of his/her mind or soul, especially when it comes to dangerous addictions and dangerous addictions in a person who already demonstrates all the symptoms of ADHD! To do so would be, well, INSANE!

I can’t help but wonder why people just don’t get it! Sometimes, what’s being done doesn’t work, yet people refuse to see that there are things that do work, and that refusal in favor of going with what isn’t working to the tune of the same devastatingly horrible results, over and over again! INSANITY! In fact in this case, that refusal is – hold on to your seats here – accompanied by these persons’ straight out DISCOURAGING their son to seek help in a program. INSANITY!? Yes, folks, no need to read that sentence again, you read it correctly the first time! 

Now if that doesn’t elicit an emphatic “What the hell?!” on your part, then you must be dead or in a deep Monday morning stupor!