Music

"Slip" and "Relapse" are on the same page as "a god of your understanding." Kind of softens the real meaning and intent. AA is full of "VICTOMS" who insist that since they have a "disease" they have no choice about taking a drink. AA also has some "VOLUNTEERS" who make a choice to dismiss what they know they should do, and choose to do what they want to do. The Big Book discusses "losing the power of choice when it comes to drinking." This discussion happens early in the book prior to making the decision to take the first step when I admit I'm powerless and unmanagable. After taking that first step and continuing on to the successive steps....in order, I find that if I do certain things on a daily basis, i.e. seek God's will for me, and that my sobriety is contingent on my spiritual relationship with my HP, I can only claim to be a VOLUNTEER if I drink again. To volunteer or not to volunteer....that is the question....and the choice.

Harry01854

Thanks DT for a very interesting thread to read. And thanks to everyone for your input. All is greatly appreciated. Hopefully this can help a newcomer to understand about what choices we do have, one of them not being, to pick up a drink.

Harry

DayTrader

Mark H mentions this specifically in several of his talks (man, I love that dude). He'd agree with you Kjell... we DON'T make choices when we're insane. "We walk around asleep - dreaming we're awake, driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity."

Here's a neat exercise I also got from Mr Houston: hit webster's online dictionary..... look up "choice" then look up "driven." ......think there was a reason Bill used "driven" on page 62?

Ananda

It doesn't matter to me what it is called....I just say I drank...again...and leave it at that.

The question of choice is a very interesting phylisophical discussion...and we all know how little good phylisophical convictions served us in the past.

Today I choose not to drink....but if I don't have a profound change of personality (spiritual expereince) The day will come that I will drink again....it's been my absolute expereince of the last 25 years. It's probably the only part of this program that I 100% understand.

CarolD

Before I began working my Steps....I did often return to drinking
It took me 4 years in AA to actually quit...

Therefore....I simply use...."returned to drinking"
and no one has ever objected...

Call it anything....just don't do it.

Boleo

"The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink."
(page 24)

"For those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. Many of us felt that we had plenty of character. There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish."
(page 34)

radicalproposal

Choice does not exist for the real alcoholic when it comes to taking the 1st drink. Period end of statement. There is no debate in this, the book makes this crystal clear as some have aptly pointed out already.

The only choice I will ever have to make again is the 2nd step proposition Ïs God everything or nothing?".

Today the problem has been removed, it does not exist, I can't choose something that is not an option.

Any AAer who claims to have choice, should revisit their 1st step.

Yeah, this will grip some of you up, the truth usually does.

24hrsAday

i'm a Real Alcoholic and i can Drink if i Choose to.. Period. i Know What will happen if i Do. so.. i Don't.. Period.

Chops

I personally think attempting to derive meaning and intent from it by examining every word is a bit of a fruitless endeavour since we will never be able to speak to the writers.

And I believe the authors were humble enough to say "we know only a little" or something along those lines. Their humilty is what attracts me to them which is in stark contrast to some in AA.

Having said that, doesn't this passage above cite most alcoholics and not all?

I will say that I am biased since the whole powerless when sober thing baffles me, after I am sober for a bit it seems I need to make a choice to put the booze back in me. I completely buy into the powerless once the first drink is taken, but the other part I struggle with. I guess I also look down on the whole notion of complete removal of personal responsibility.

DayTrader

Actually, my great grand sponsor knew Bill W fairly well.... (not intimately, they weren't best friends... but he absolutely knew him as more than an acquaintance)

radicalproposal

If that is your truth, which parts of the book do you adhere to?

Music

24's statement also applies to me...period. I adhere to the program outlined in the Big Book....period. But I mostly adhere to God and His will for me and as far as I know, He hasn't removed the freedom to choose a drink, or choose to remain sober....period.

Again, the section of the Big Book where it declares that we've lost the power of choice, is prior to the start of working the program of sobriety. It presumes that we're still drinking and in that case I agree. When I was drinking, I never botthered to choose because drinking was on automatic pilot. I just drank! After coming to AA and realizing that there were options to drinking, i.e. meetings, a sponsor to call, working the steps...etc., I do have a choice....period.

RobbyRobot

Yeah, same here. I'm sober today and I get to choose if I want to drink or not. My choice today. My alcoholism is arrested, thanks be to spiritual living with God, and sharing with fellow alcoholics, and service to others. When I was drinking, of course my choice was zero, I was beyond human help.

Alcoholic drinking itself dosen't even come up as a consideration anymore and hasn't for years. Why should it? I'm sober for good and all, and the problem has been removed from my daily life. Just like was promised.

Live and let live.

Rob

zbear23

Having been a chronic relapser for several years, I can truthfully say that the only choice that was really involved was whether or not I was willing to "take my medicine" exactly as prescribed (by AA). Ultimately, the solution to this "seemingly hopeless state of mind and body" was a spiritual one. The trick for me was to continue the "treatment" regardless of how much better I felt....that I needed to maintain my spiritual fitness or....return to spiritual sleep. It was the insanity that allowed me to believe I could discontinue the solution that had restored me to sanity. I couldn't think my way out of insane thinking, and I couldn't choose my way out of insane choices.

I like the "allergy of the body, obsession of the mind," description in AA, but I also know that science has made some headway since 1939, and a lot of my defiance, rebellion, procrastination and assorted other "adolescent" behaviors were instrumental in my choices not to "follow the doctor's orders." As has been so often described in meetings, I had the emotional (mental) development of a 14 year old. This is fact, not metaphor. My prefrontal cortex, the seat of adult reasoning and choice, is ******** in its development by the use of the toxic substances I put into my body. This part of my brain doesn't really start developing until around age 12-13 (the age of bar mitvah, or adulthood, in Judaism) and the age when so many begin their nicotine and alcohol use. The prefrontal cortex will resume its normal development with the cessation of these substances, but the healing/rebalancing process usually takes years...not weeks or months. And that explains to me part of the reason I continued to make "bad"choices...like picking up a drink again....I was still acting like a 14 year old...impulsive, defiant, etc.

I'm reminded of the fellow who said, "I'm always surprised at how much smarter my parents are now than they were when I was a teenager."

IMO...the only relevant "choice" for me was to either follow the directions of the solution...fully and in detail....or not.

The result has been that I've developed a lifestyle that requires rigorous honesty and the practice of certain principles in all my affairs. Picking up a drink is simply not on my menu any more: neither is drinking bleach or eating mudpies.

I have a sneaking suspicion that those considered "saints" didn't stop praying when they reached sainthood.

blessings
zenbear

shaun00

Some good points imo.

The power of choice was the "golden egg" never to be achieved while drinking or while sober.. using my own resolve to achieve it..

The power of choice now, after engagement in "life grounded in spritual principles" and 12 steps as a frame work for life.....the problem of having no choice has gone.

But its semantics really.......like i hate marmite/vegemite......so i never think about choosing whether to have some or not......there is no chose..Yuk

Living this recovered state.....of having the problem removed.....requires input.
Cease putting in that input and i would guess through others experience ive heard...things start to slide.

Stop praying..........Stop growing along spiritual lines........Stop helping the suffering........Stop being honest........Stop inventory......etc.

Slowly but surely........."i" begin to keep myself sober again......
that invisible spring will return...and before long i may find myself choosing a option that a while back wasnt on the agenda.