If I find I cannot control the amount of alcohol I drink once I start drinking, then I am “POWERLESS” over alcohol. Being powerless over “people, places & things” is NOT the alcoholic’s problem. Alcohol is my “master” .
There is no such thing as “just a couple” of drinks. When an alcoholic starts drinking, they always drink too much but it is never enough.
If I am physically “POWERLESS” over alcohol once I have taken the first few drinks, then the solution is to not start drinking in the first place.
But if I am a REAL alcoholic, I will find that all but impossible to do. Without some alcohol in my blood stream, I am restless, irritable & discontented. my mind, and possibly the subconscious mind, vividly remembers the sense of ease and comfort that comes at once with taking a few drinks.
My mind cannot remember the misery and humiliation I suffered only a few days prior to needing that first couple of drinks. The result of which is that the REAL alcoholic will begin drinking one more time. And as Dr. Silkworth stated, “This is repeated over and over, and unless I can experience an entire psychic change there is little hope of my recovery.”
there lies the source of the UNMANAGEABILITY stated in Step One. The inability of the REAL alcoholic to manage his decision to never take another drink as long HE/SHE lives.
At the moment of that decision, I am adamant about never taking another drink, Where alcohol is concerned, I am absolutely through forever,
But the REAL alcoholic has an “ALCOHOLIC MIND” that will produce the “INSIDIOUS INSANITY” to take another drink in spite of the alcoholic’s determination to stay off the booze.