But is it my choice not to drink today? is it you choice? Curious as to your thoughts.
I think this is why so many people consider "alcoholism", as "cunning baffling and powerful". When you realize that we think on 2 different levels, conscious and subconscious, it is quite easy to see why especially in the height of our addiction we feel that even though we make a conscious choice not to drink, our subconscious voice wins the battle and we pick up the bottle or relapse.
First when we decide we have a problem with alcohol or state that we are an alcoholic we give our subconscious brain even more ammo and strengthen the thought that we can not function without alcohol. What do alcoholics do? They drink and they need to drink to cope and to survive. Most of us have already learned and inbedded in our subconscious the need for alcohol to reduce stress, to have fun, to socialize, to celecbrate to mourn etc. Tack on the fact that we are admitting that we are an alcoholic who needs alcohol and you can see why the subconscious mind will continue to tell you to drink.
Now we have the conscious mind saying I don't want to die, I don't want to embarrass myself or my family, I don't want to get a DUI, I don't want a hangover, I don't want to drink etc. This is where the problem occurs because our brain is incongruent and not balanced in it's thinking. The conscious mind is saying one thing and the unconscious mind another. So when there is a choice to be made we have a real battle within ourselves, and occassionally the subconscious mind wins the battle, which completely baffles us because we consciously did not want to drink.
The key to win the battle is to get the unconscious mind reprogrammed to believe it doesn't want and need alcohol. Then the mind is balanced and the obsessive thinking over drinking disappears. So yes you do have a choice in the matter, and if your subconscious and conscious mind are balanced it is easy and sustainable. If your subconscious mind still believes you have to rely on alcohol all bets are off, and you are back to "cunning, baffling and powerful".