Originally Posted by
BurningChrome 
...(knowing better but still making the personal choice to do so), then drinking for a week or two
Maybe you can consider the idea that you're not making a personal choice to do so. I know it seems like that. All the actions involved, going to the store, buying a bottle, unscrewing the cap, all of that. It seems like a personal choice. But the facts are, you made a personal choice to not do so. And you still went and got that bottle.
That was when the idea of powerlessness started to hit home with me. I'd keep making that decision to not drink, but I'd always end up drunk. Maybe it wasn't a choice after all. I started to look exactly how AA describes. Repeating that cycle over and over.
Originally Posted by AA BB, 1st Ed
After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.