Oh, I can look at that a couple of ways, all of them useful. In some cases it's just semantics, and other times that different perspective provides a different relationship to it.
On the simplest level, if I'm powerless over booze, if I've lost the power of choice in drink, if I'm doomed to pick up that first drink again, then by definition my life is unmanageable. I can make a decision to not drink, but I lack the power to manage that decision.
Then by Step 3, I see that life run on self-will can hardly be a success. This gets to the root of my trouble. My obsession with self, manifested in resentment and fear, makes my life unmanageable. I'm always fighting the against the current of the flow of life, instead of floating along with it. I'm always in collision. In that mode, I can never be satisfied, and thus never truly happy.
Do I ever get the power back? I don't think so. As the result of the Steps, I can no more take a drink today than I could not not take a drink prior.