Self Knowledge

Thus started one more journey to the asylum for Jim. Here was the threat of commitment, the loss of family and position, to say nothing of that intense mental and physical suffering which drinking always caused him. He had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic. Yet all reasons for not drinking were easily pushed aside in favor of the foolish idea that he could take whiskey if only he mixed it with milk!

Whatever the precise definition of the word may be, we call this plain insanity. How can such a lack of proportion, of the ability to think straight, be called anything else? - Alcoholics Anonymous pp. 36-37

Why exactly does self-knowledge fail to protect us? I think the answer lies in understanding what type of thinking leads us back to the bottle. To call it insanity is merely descriptive. This is how the world perceives us. We behave in a totally insane, irrational way. "Yet all reasons for not drinking.." And that is were the problem lies. Picking up a drink is not irrational from the perspective of the alcoholic. I believe it is arational. This may not be a familiar term, so here is a definition:

arational
 
Not within the domain of what can be understood or analyzed by reason; not rational, outside the competence of the rules of reason.

I find this to be an effective way of untangling the "strange mental twists" that characterize this kind of thinking. We have "reasons" for not drinking, but the decision is made outside the domain of reason. We can't think our way out of the first drink because the impulse in not coming from the rational part of our minds. From a psychological perspective, it could be seen as emanating from the subconscious mind. But if that were so, then psychotherapy would be an effective cure for alcoholism. Clearly it is not.

So what part of our brain is conscious but arational?  I think the idea that we are simultaneously body, mind and spirit implies that it is not the mind of the alcoholic that gets him into trouble, it is his spirit. Consider this passage in page 64 (emphasis mine):

[W]e have been not only mentally (mind) and physically (body) ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.

Notice the priority. Mental and physical health is dependent on our spiritual health: sick spirit, sick body and mind. We have a daily reprieve contingent on our spiritual condition. So if the decision to pick up the drink is a spiritual one, then self-knowledge, a rational state of mind, cannot help us. We need a new spiritual state. And that is what AA is all about.