Cow,
i never "liked" the AA notion (notion???) that i'm powerless over alcohol either..
no, didn't like it one bit, thought it was crazy and untrue. certainly for me. i just needed to focus on power and focus my intellect on the task of commanding power better.
sigh.
(most of us thought that. it's all over these boards.)
i did experiment after experiment, ever more desperately focussing my intellect on the task of commanding power better.
it didn't work.
maybe you are different.
of course you are; anhedonia and all that.
but you're NOT different in believing you'll do this through more power, or in that you don't believe yourself to be powerless over alcohol.
the "inner resource" comes straight from the BB appendix:
" With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves.
Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it "God-consciousness."
and still speaks to a power greater than ourselves, i.e. can be within us but is not me, or you, or us.
and i don't think this is so for only atheists, agnostics or freethinkers (what are those who aren't freethinkers?? enslavedthinkers?). you could be a theist, deist, pantheist, whatever, and still your understanding of a power greater than you can be an unsuspected inner resource.
and yes, i found the mention of "unsuspected inner resource" giving me tons of room.
i'll try and be quiet now.