We as a society ascribe human characteristics to all manner of things: cars, boats, computers, homes, our pets, cancer, psychiatrists.....
It's one of the most effective tools we have to interact with these things and talk abou them.
I have experienced my own alcoholism as cunning, baffling, and powerful like this:
1) When I was still trying to manage my drinking, I would attempt to draw a line on the bottle where I would intend to quit. By the time I got to that line, however, my brain no longer had the ability to follow my original direction. The nature of my alcoholism was such that I thought I could tell it when to stop but it ended up telling me to go to h3ll. Cunning.
2) I drank until I had a black out and woke up in unknown territory. Swore I'd never drink again. Next morning, picked up and started drinking again, telling myself that it would make me feel better if I just had "a litt." Baffling.
3) I love my family more than anything else in the world. I treasure my children and adore my husband. For, some reason, it took me YEARS to actually treat my family as if they were more important to me than alcohol. Because alcohol was my secret lover, essentially. Powerful.
I like those words because it helps me remember, now that I'm sober, to continue to check my priorities in my life. To continue to make sure that I'm putting the things that I love above my fight against addiction. Sometimes, when I feel myself waver or lose hope, I can remind myself that my addiction is cunning, baffling, and powerful. And I can look for the errors in my thinking that are dangerously close to making me think that I could drink without consequences.