fini

getting back to the OP:

JTBIV, i don't hate it anymore when people say it's a choice, but i sure used to!
now, i think it's ignorant. lack of understanding what they're talking about. or at the very least not talking about anything that resembles MY experience.

here's why i used to hate i when people said it: because i thought it was true.
i spent seemingly forever battling what i believed to be my free choice to keep returning to the **** i swore i wanted to leave behind.
i was absolutely convinced i had total and free choice about that.
there was no way it could be otherwise. anyone who said they had no free choice was playing the weak irresponsible victim card.
but....butbutbut...finally, then, if i believed that, i had to, uh, well then, it would make me insane or really really sick somehow to freely choose to go back to the place i so desperately tried to escape from...
so, no matter which way i looked at it, i was screwed: either my choice wasn't really "choice" in the way we understand it in other areas, or, if it was, i was entirely nuts.
but i got sober before i really worked that one out for myself (not BY myself)
addiction and/or alcoholism impairs choice. impedes control.
i had been impaired :-) in that different way.

now, after some sober years, nothing to hate when others say it's a choice.
we're in different places.

none of this means that you can't find a way to get and stay sober, JTBIV. you're not doomed.