I used to fight that "I am powerless over alcohol thing". In some ways it was because I have never really 'failed' at things. I've generally been good at them or persevered until I could at least do them before I'd make a choice to give up...
So part of it is ego and pride "I am NOT powerless. This isn't going to beat ME!!!"
Well - guess what? That thinking only encouraged me to continue trying and trying to prove I'm not powerless. And you know what the results were? Try after try of discovering that in the end.... I damn sure am.
As another poster pointed out - we're not totally powerless. We have the power to choose to be sober and to get well. What I found to be true for me, and what I've seen to be true for many, many others is this;
It's different for us all. For you, it might be a sudden pick up a drink and head right into the abyss. For me, it's not every time, but it is ALWAYS 'eventually'. If I choose to allow alcohol into my life, sooner or later it has me acting in ways that I didn't want to and that I regret. And that, after many attempts at proving otherwise to myself, I finally had to admit is powerlessness.
My power rests in my daily choice of sobriety. I am only in 'power' when I choose to take the sober path. When I allow alcohol to be a part of my life, the consistent results are clear. It gets the better of me and I lose my life a little bit at a time.
Maybe it's "only a couple of glasses of wine". But if you didn't 'want' to, and yet you did.... then where is your power? Who made you do that? If you chose a choice your heart really didn't desire - where is your power?
If you opened that bottle even as another voice inside you said "damn it... why am I doing this???" and you said "**** it... I'll quit tomorrow"....
Where is your power?
We can only decide for ourselves. AA cannot tell us. Our friends cannot tell us. Our alcoholic voice will do everything it can to convince us of our power....
But inside - you will know.
And if you are like me, and many others I know, then my wish for you is that you come to the conclusion while you still do have the power to choose.
At some point in our progression - alcoholics who do not choose sobriety lose their power to choose. That - from the stories I have heard from friends - is where hell truly begins.