I'm thinking denial is a subtle thing. I thought I had a choice, but when I think about it there was no sane choice. A sane person would consider all the facts, giving each its proper weight, and with my history, could only make one decision, the sane one not to drink.
Do be sane and make a choice to drink, which is a choice to harm all those around me, is just a plain nasty thing to do, and I'm not nasty. I didn't want to hurt anyone. That was the furthest thing from my mind.
The fact is I could not make the right choice, which to me is the same as losing the power of (to make the) right choice. This is something many of us alcoholics have come to realise over time, but also many of us hung on to the illusion that we could choose for quite a while.
I denied I had lost the power to choose, and that meant I continued to think I could pick and choose whether I did anything about recovery, and the result was more misery.
In the end I was left with only one choice, live life on a spiritual basis, or face an alcoholic death. This was the truth, there was no denying it. But I fought it to the end.
One of the things I enjoy about your posts is that they are so well written, clear, concise. Your thought processes and ability to reason seem very solid. On the otherhand, I lost that ability. I couldn't think or express myself. Its progressive.