In my daily life I get the unfortunate opportunity of seeing people who truly are hopeless...modern medicine can no longer help them and their lives are going to come to an end. Alcoholism does not fit into this category unless one has compromised an organ to the extent that it is beyond repair. Up until this point of no return there is always hope since we have the power to stop drinking ourselves to death. The theory of hopelessness and powerlessness is an ideology that you do not have to adopt in order to recover. The grim reality of life is no one lives forever...the choice then becomes are you going to allow your addiction to take you out? Like Dee stated there are thousands of folks here that decided to change the course of their lives...that is the message of hope that needs to permeate.