munchdaddy

Powerless is a powerful word. Defined it is a state of no control of an expected outcome. Or as my Grandmother form the south would say; “ain’t nuttin’ you can do ‘bout it.” There is one of two ways to interpret that. One way, that seems helpful for some, is that powerless is an admission that must be made to regain ones life from that they are powerless over. To others, myself included, admitting that powerlessness puts control right in the hands of the enemy. A voice in our heads says, “that’s right, you are. So, if you are powerless, we might as well keep on going.” This can be a dangerous proposition if you tell someone who is already hopeless that they are now powerless. This puts some people in corner that they now feel they can never get out of. For a long time AVRT has served me well with this. I hear those thoughts and I just recognize them and move on. I have been slowly but surely maturing in my recovery process, and now find the need to lean more towards REBT techniques. What I failed to realize, is that recognition and subsequent nonreaction keep those thoughts coming back, even if I choose not to act on them . I now find that I have options, other than the constant “stop thought’ I have been engaged in. I can now, ABC and disarm my way out of these “situations.” And as Gomer Pyle would say “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” my battle has become less constant. The gift of these tools that SMART recovery has given me lay a foundation. And like any foundation, it can be built on. When I build on it, I am happier, more confidant, and discouraging instead of encouraging that voice to come back.
SMART recovery is a great alternative. It is not conneted with RR, and the people are far less arrogant.



Thanks to all for your time and patience.

phoenix

Thanks for giving some insight on what works for you.

For myself I know that I am powerless over the effect alcohol has on me when I drink.No matter what I do or how long I stay sober,I'll never be a normal drinker.I never was one in the first place.I had my first blackout in my late teens and they became pretty common for me.

I've found some tools that give me the ability to stay sober and the choice to use those tools is mine.As long as I do what I need to do,I never have to return to the misery of drinking.

One of the things that works for me is getting honest with myself and others.Taking responsibility for what I do is another.Being willing to help others is a big part of my recovery.I have choices now and that's a great freedom.

phoenix

justaround

Once an alcoholic, I believe that the individual is powerless over ANOTHER drink, once they have started up again. I know that I couldn't have just one drink after I have started. There is an obvious reason behind me trying out an alcoholic beverage and it ain't for the taste. Less filling? Great tasting? I don't care, I'm drinking to get **** drunk or at least catch that buzz and once I start up and I start to catch that wave I'm not going to be able to put down the brews until I have a few more.

What I don't believe is that someone is powerless in general over alcohol. If so then every time an alcoholic passes by a gas staion with a Budweiser ad (every time I pass by a Budweiser ad) they would HAVE to go in and buy some Budweiser. This is proven not true. That means there is some power left in the addicts body not to pick up again. That power is called choice. The same idea goes for a television ad or anything else. Now if you are the only one sitting around a bunch of people getting drunk and you deided that you have to drink as well, this is not powerless, this is choice. This is called setting yourself up for a relapse. You may have made the "choice" days ago before the party. You set yourself up in the position because you wanted to drink.

I do believe I am powerless over that next drink though. I can't have just one once I have started

DallasHawkins

Munchdaddy, I really enjoy reading your posts they appear so articulate and intellectual.
I have also been thinking about power, specifically power of the mind. For years I have been watching my mind, the thoughts,feelings whatever goes on in there. It seems that my thoughts or mind have as much power as I'm willing to give to it. If I separate and observe them, thoughts seem more similar to dreams or maybe fantasies. If I choose to identify with them, all kinds of crazy things can happen. Once I ended up thinking I was a diseased alcoholic that couldn't stop drinking, and damn near ended up as one. I think the reason AVRT works for me is because I was already doing it in my life but for some reason I never applied it to alcohol. I thought that alcoholism WAS a disease, instead of investigating I took for granted what somebody else told me. One of the things I've learned from my experiences is that I'm trying to recognize beliefs and dismiss them as not-knowledge. And also to be very careful about what thoughts I entertain, because they can take me where I don't want to go. This may sound strange or maybe not but I think my spiritual quest is to get to know the cat that is observing all these thoughts and feelings that are running around in this mind-body-spirit or whatever you want to call it.
There, I've laid out one of my true eccentricities for anyone to see. Feels good.
Good luck,
Stan

2stop

These past few days I have been thinking a lot about being powerless. I think too long about it and I need a margarita to go along with the conversation in my head! I haven't picked up a drink or used anything else today and for that I am realizing that realizing I am powerless over alcohol really means THAT'S great because I can start making choices, I don't have to be a slave to every feeling and pain I have and when I numb the pain it only comes back harder and stronger. Hope you all are having a good day.
Tammie

Chy

I know the answer may never come as to why I was chosen to be powerless over alcohol. I find pondering that thought is exhausting. So learning to accept the fact is what I must find the power to do. I completely over generalized step 1 .. Yup, thats me, duh.. I've known that for years, yup, so what my life is unmanageable and other then work I plan everything else around the days I'd be drinking and the hang-overs that followed.
Calling in sick, making excuses, etc...

How terribly ridiculous that is to me, no, how horribly sad that is!

To accept the above daily schedule of my life is just to much to bare at times. But slowly, I find the power within myself to make it to a meeting, slowly I find a way to peel off the guilt this powerlessness has done to me and slowly, day by day I realize I am what I am, but I DO have the power to change my life and have the power within me to make my own happiness.

I will forever be greatful to AA for this gift.

Chy

munchdaddy,

Please exuse my ignorance. Would you please explain the other sources you cited .
SMART
REBT
AVRT?

Thanks!

Ninerfan

No one likes to admit that they are powerless over alcohol. It is a silly liquid for Christs sake, I cant possibly be powerless over it. OK, step up to the bar and have a couple of drinks. Then stop. Maybe you need to do that a couple of times just to be sure. If you can do that without any trouble then you dont have a problem.

If I could still drink and stop when I wanted to, then I would still be drinking. But how many of us can truly say that and mean it? Being powerless over alchol is just one fact of life for me. It is a boundary that I must not cross. That is all that it means.

phoenix

For me,it's important to distinguish between being powerless over the effect alcohol had on me when I drank,and being powerless over picking up the first drink.There was a time when the power of choice seemed beyond me.With the best intentions of staying straight I would still be unable to do it.Even when I knew I was killing myself I couldn't seem to stop...until I finally crashed.I'm alive today by what I can only think of as a miracle.

Fast forward to recovery.The tools I found in AA, and among recovering people of several fellowships, give me choices.I don't have to go back.I don't have to drink or use.Even if the urge(over which I am powerless)strikes,I don't have to follow it.I may not always be able to stop the thought,urge or compulsion,but nothing can make me give in to it.

There is a fairly common misconception that AA teaches powerlessness as an all encompassing thing.It isn't true.There are things I am powerless over,and there are things that I am responsible for...things I am not powerless over.This is how it has worked for me.

That's the beauty of it.Alcoholics come in all different varieties.And there is enough variety in recovery to go around

phoenix

munchdaddy

Chy,
Smartrecovery.org on the web

Chy

I like that niner, " A boundry I can not cross"

I pray I can continue to not look back and just watch the days of sobriety go by in the rearview mirror.

JT

In my program...Alanon...I too am powerless over alcohol. But more than that I am powerless over you...the alcoholic. In my disease I nagged you and shamed you, dumped your booze...but I also called your boss for you and cleaned up after you and in some ways made it easier for you to continue to hurt yourselves. Pretty sick.

I had to learn that I had no control and therefore no power over your decisions because in the end... it ain't over until you decide it is over.

When I learned that the cage began to rattle a bit.

The illusion of control is a drug. Perhaps for you as well...the illusion you had for many years of the abilty to control alcohol.

Hugs,
JT

Jon

"I knew from that moment that I had an alcoholic mind. I saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots. I had never been able to understand people who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated. I knew then. It was a crushing blow."

~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, More About Alcoholism, pg. 42~

SobrietyFirst

This question, Powerless versus Power, is yet another one where I am re-learning what that means in my experience. The question of being powerless or powerful clearly has extensions in my experience beyond alcohol.

I am powerless over alcohol once I take that first drink. That really is what the first part of step one really says ..."We admitted we were powerless over alcohol..." I'm not sure why I didn't see that before, but there it is.

Where it gets tricky for me is in the second part, "...,that our lives had become unmanageable."

I just had an experience with my roommate that provides an example of at least one thing I see in my experience I am powerless over, other people.

He is newly sober like me. I've watched him with his brother, who is still using and drinking in a big way, working with him daily in his painting profession. He's done everything possible to help his brother quit...through example, through discussion, and from what I can tell, in every way possible beyond tying him up and forcing him into rehab. Of course, he has failed time and again to sober his brother up, and despite both his best efforts and intentions, his brother is still using and taking actions that are destructive to himself.

Those destructive behaviors are also affecting my roommate financially (Pawning equipment needed to do his job, putting in only partial time on full time jobs) and it is clear his state of mind is extremely tense (restless, irritable, discontent). In short, his best efforts aren't helping his brother at all, as he is failing to get his brother to quit, and he himself is suffering terribly. He continues to try, though, just the same (after each failed attempt, he tries harder and gets the same result).

Now, I see what is happening, and have spoken with him many times about this, often very gently and carefully, and I can see what he is doing and what he is getting. I can also see where that could lead him despite his protestations to the contrary...right into one of those mental blank spots where he'll use or drink...emphasis on could as I really don't know if he will or will not use again...

Why? Because he is trying to run the show for somebody else as he has always done, he isn't getting what he wants, and that failure is eating away at him peice by peice. He can't take that step for his brother.

By the same token, I cannot take the step for him in seeing what is happening and what he is doing. I may be off the mark here about what is happening anyway. My point I see here is that I have no power over other people in my life. My roomie, despite what I might wish for him, or perhaps see in him and the situation he is in, is going to do what he wishes. I have zero power over him.

Where I can exercise some power here is in how his situation affects me, and it does affect me. I want to help him, I want to protect him from discomfort, I want to shakle him by the shoulders and force the info. from the AA book upon him. In short, I want him to see what I see so he can avoid the pain of what is happening with him.

The question then becomes what do I do? It is clear I am experiencing a disturbance inside of myself. Something has gotten my goat in a big way. Now, even though I wasn't involved directly to begin with, I've got a problem.

I'll post another note that addresses this question from my experience....

Blessings

SobrietyFirst

Can I shove my thoughts and the associated emotions out of my mind through will? Can I redefine it to make it less threatening to my own serenity and peace of mind? Can I ignore it as if it simply does not exist? Do I cut this other person out of my life, avoiding him to make the thought / emotion combination go away? I am feeling something in response to what is happening with him even though it doesn't involve me in any way beyond being an observer and a friend.

I've tried each of these above methods throughout my life. Invariably, I find that they do not provide much relief, as inevitably, the memories of whatever it was that started it to begin with come crashing back into my consciousness, and the hurricane of emotions associated with them come back in full force as well, only worse.

Heaped on top of what ever it was I was feeling to begin with is a growing anger at having not succeeded in dismissing the disturbance to begin with. The unspoken question that comes out is along the lines of "What the Hell? I got rid of you!!! Why are you back???" I exercised great power of mind and will, only to have it come up short.

Heaped on top of what ever it was to begin with, PLUS the new anger is fear. Why the fear? Well, I exercised my own power, and lo and behold it appears to have been unsuccessful. My own personal power, which is quite substabtial, proved to be ineffective, and I have come up short again.

Heaped on top of what ever it was I felt to begin with, PLUS the new anger, PLUS the new fear, is a dislike of myself. Why? Well, my best effort failed. I failed!!!

And over time, with each attempt and failure, I begin to experience full blown shame, e.g. I AM a failure, in addition to this dislike of myself, in addition to the fear, in addition to the anger, in addition to whatever it was to begin with.

So, I try again, and the result is the same. Only, each time, I add a new twist to what I am doing with my mind and will, which only sparks more tension, more thought, more emotion, until somewhere in the cycle, I loose touch with whatever it was that happened to begin with. The original event becomes so distorted from the truth, snowballing into this gigantic amalgamation of half truths, whispers, emotions, and partial memories, that I cannot even begin to see where I started. That cycle in my mind and emotion goes on and on and on until before I know it, I haven't got a friggin clue what is going on with me, where it started, how it started, or what to do about it. It is like boxing with my own shadow...how the hell can I ever win that fight?

That's the cycle from my experience. God what a mess...and it didn't come from BEING powerful or powerless. It came from using the power at my disposal in areas where I cannot control a damn thing...at least not for very long. Some kind of action is required here, not just the action of thought, nor the actions in the world that feed this cycle of thoughts / emotions. So what is that action to be?

So...what is different today? How is this different for me today? How have my actions in the world in response to, and out of this chaos changed? The best I can offer for now is that what I have discovered in the book of AA outlined in the principles of the program is a way out of this insanity I have described above. I'll write more on this subject from my experience using the tools of AA, and I'll offer a bit of what those tools are and how I've used them, a bit later.

Blessings

Jon

Thought provoking, indeed.

If my "problem" is centered in my mind, wouldn't it make sense that solutions to that problem must come from outside my mind?

And based on my experience, if my willpower never worked before, despite countless attempts, why all of a sudden is it going to work now??? I'm not aware of any magical willpower switch.

Countless vain attempts to prove that I could drink like others.

Countless vain attempts to prove that I could quit on my own.

This same will that serves me so well in business, creativity and character fails me completely when it comes to alcohol and drugs.

Oaths, promises, committments, plans, goals....none of these were suffecient once the obsession took hold. Consideration of family, relationships, employers were not enough either. And a review of possible consequences regarding the first drink were easily and simply pushed aside with the thought that "This time it will be different."

JT

SobrietyFirst,

Welcome to my world! My attempts to control another person is what drove me to a 12 step program. What you are describing is classic codependent behavior.

Each attempt is a failure and after each attempt I was left feeling worse and worse about myself. Talk about committee meetings! I would have full blow conversations acting out both sides and predicting the probable outcome. Doing the same things over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. When I entered the rooms of Alanon I insane.

Since that time, 10 years ago, I have learned alot. I have no power over people , places or things. In order to come to terms with that knowledge I had to learn to accept people, places and things exactly as they were. Not the way I wished they would be.
Acceptance is the key. I don't know the page but you will find that in your Big Book. Whenever I am troubled it is because there is something I cannot accept.

The other key thing I learned is that my power over others is an illusion. I have no power there. The only power I have is over myself and my choices. Of which I have many. I can be a supportive without offering up my judgement. I can certainly walk away if a relationship is threatening my serenity (your sobriety). I can detach from the relationship. Or I can walk away temporarily until I have gotten my own discomfort indentified.

The important thing to remember is that your response to your friend is a reaction...it is automatic. Reactions can be changed when they are acknowledged.

Hugs,
JT

DolphinBlue

This thread is really good reading, thanks everyone.

That acceptance part in the Big Book is one of my favourites, at least the bit I was shown is. Page 448/9

Amy

munchdaddy

That's about the size of it. Power over ones choices and responsibility for their results.

Jon

Hey Munch..I'm feeling left out! You never take little itty bitty pieces from my posts and quote them out of context...

Comments always welcome...