Inventory

Rampage: To move about wildly or violently.

Instincts on rampage balk at investigation.

Collision: (An instance of) impacting directly, especially if violent.

Instincts in collision.

Exceed: To go too far; to be excessive. (Ed. Note: Don't you just hate the word "too." As if I can overdo something.)

How instincts can exceed their proper function.

Bill and Bob and the Founders could be a little dramatic with their verbiage sometimes but then again unchecked alcoholism can be a little dramatic with the human mind, body, and soul. "Violent" seems to be a common descriptor. Colliding violently isn't an image that comes to mind when I'm thinking about my instincts.

Instinct: A natural or inherent impulse or behavior; an intuitive reaction not based on conscious rational thought.

I like the idea that our instincts are unconscious and unchained from rational thought. They are just happening. The Big Three as detailed in The Big Book are sex, power, and cash. Or Sex, Society, and Security. These are not going to be things that we can get rid of easily if at all. These are programmed onto our hard drives. We naturally want to procreate, live in a warm, dry house that has at least a minimally stocked kitchen, and be recognized by other people around us as someone who is worth something. All that seems fair enough to me.

Here's what the book has to say about those troublesome instincts . . .

Powerfully, blindly, many times subtly, they drive us, dominate us, and insist on ruling our lives.

When they drive us blindly, or we willfully demand that they supply us with more satisfactions or pleasures that are possible or due us, that is the point at which we depart from the degree of perfection that God wishes for us here on earth.

So as I see it that, once again, it isn't the instincts (or anything else, frankly) that's the problem - it's the alcoholic. We are most definitely over-the-toppers and over-doings and going-overboarders. The problem isn't the sex, power, and money, it's the grabbing and snatching and grasping - THAT'S the problem.

Again.