RobbyRobot

Well, I tried the problem-is-in-my-head school of thought and all i ever got from that was some dry time inbetween drinks. Firm desicions really have nothing to do with drinking or not drinking for alcoholics. Problem drinkers can have (of course) full use of whatever will-power to control their drinking because they do not have the illness of alcoholism superceding their personal efforts.

Alcoholism is an illness of the mind, body, and spirit. There is no known established universal cure. The illness is progressive and fatal. It can be arrested and stopped however from a spiritual realm of experience. Even then only the drinking problem-obsession is removed, the illness itself yet remains and will become re-activated with of course alcohol drinking or failure of spiritual fitness, IMO.

Many opinions are out there for problem drinking, alcoholism, recovery, recovered, spiritual, Higher Power, will-power, et al.

The opinion that matters really at the end of the day for any of us is the honest be-true-to-ourselves individual one held by each person who for what ever reason suffers or has suffered from drinking alcohol. A person does not need to be an alcoholic to be in all kinds of trouble with alcohol drinking. Lives can still be destroyed and that particular individual never had, has, or ever will have the illness of alcoholism. Most drinkers do not acquire or otherwise have alcoholism, has been my life experiences working with others. IMO, many more are problem drinkers or hard drinkers rather than drinkers who have actual alcoholism as an illness. But that's me, and some others, who think that way about the differences between alcoholism and problem drinking.

I have found that alcoholics who recovered their lives by living a spiritual recovery easily have little use for will-power having anything to do with their happy and progressive day to day experiences free from not only the obsessions of drinking, but also from the progressive nature of the illness of alcoholism as well. It's not a cure, its a way of living free inspite of the realities from alcoholism. I don't pay a price for alcoholism anymore. Been there and done that.

Alcoholic or hard-drinker or problem drinker. Its a big world and we all have our experiences and opinions. Live and let live.

Rob

Boleo

Powerless is the best thing that ever happened to me. It forced me to learn about;

Wu Wei
Wu wei - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nishkam Karma
Nishkam Karma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ZaZen
Zazen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Cloud of Unknowing
The Cloud of Unknowing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

DayTrader

I get-ya... that stuff made me mad too....

then one day it kinda hit me - how immature am I being.....sitting around.....complaining about my reality.....rather than DOING something about it? That one hurt me. I realized I was having an adult temper tantrum.....meanwhile alcoholism was eating my lunch.

Fiddle away......once it's broken it's broken for good. 75yrs of tens of thousands of alkies tells me that.... I figure, since my life is on the line, it might be better to just accept it and move on vs. try to fight it and die in the process.

Murray4x5

I beg to differ, Rob. As in the definition from the Mayo Clinic above, we are both alcoholics.

There is a long downhill slope from that first ever drink, to an ugly alcohol fuelled death. Alcoholism is progressive. Maybe I stepped off that slope earlier than you, or before any real serious damage was done, but if I had kept progressing merrily along at the pace I was going I would have surely met your definition of a real alcoholic.

I believe I am 100% responsible for my staying sober. There is no mysterious evil force out there that is trying to make me get drunk, just as there's no mysterious good force out there that can save me.

It's all chemistry, physiology, and psychology. My limbic system and brain stem are trying every trick in their evolutionary quiver to make my rational, thinking brain decide to drink again. Simple as that.

Only time will tell, as somebody pointed out to me earlier, if I remain sober for the rest of my life or not. It's my belief that I am not powerless over alcohol because to drink again I will have to decide to buy some booze, I'll have to decide not to throw it away on the way home, I'll have to decide not to pour it down the drain but to pour it in a glass, then I'll have to decide to raise it to my lips, then I'll have to decide to pour some into my mouth, then I'll have to decide not to spit it out but to swallow it...then I'll have to decide to drink the rest.

That leaves a person plenty of opportunities to choose not to dink, don't you think? That leaves plenty of opportunities for a person to choose reason over instinct driven basal urges, don't you think?

Anyways...however one manages to do it, it should be seen as a triumph

Murray

ZZworldontheweb

I'm not sure you are all that far from the classic position Murray. You may have control now that you've stopped, but was willpower enough alone to allow you to control the AMOUNT you drank, when you were still drinking? I think that's the primary definition of powerlessness.

Again, for me, once the withdrawal symptoms started, they were too frightening for me to overcome without SOME kind of outside aid.

We may be splitting hairs here.

Murray4x5

Well, after I passed out in my chair and then woke up a few hours later, I would drink whatever was left in the house.

Maybe, but at some point we were at the same place on the slope. If I had kept progressing I too would have had awful withdrawal symptoms and my brain would have a harder time using logic and reason against instinctive basal urges.

Yes, we are splitting hairs here. If I get to a doctor to fix the bone cancer in my jaw quickly and you wait till it's the size of a grapefruit, we both still had bone cancer in our jaws.

Murray

April999

I know AA has helped tons of people, and is an effective treatment option for some. However, if alcoholism is a disease, then we should treat it like a disease. Technological advances in science and medicine are a good thing. I think keeping an open mind is key. There is often more than one solution to a problem. To me, exploring other treatment options or potential options has nothing to do with having a big ego. Anything that can increase the success rate of anyone suffering from any disease is worth taking a look at.

Mark75

Do you think that the limbic system, neurotransmitters, evolution, logic and reason, whatever... all of those things... are mutually exclusive, separate and unaffected by an individual's spiritual experience? That a person's sense of well being, healing, or lack of healing, are completely separate from a person's spiritual approach to those ideas?

Science has, in fact, found evidence to suggest otherwise....

Murray, your photograph of your daughter under the tree bowed over by the weight of the snow suggests that you see more to life than frozen H2O molecules and neuroanatomy... That maybe you see something more to life...

I'm not pushing AA or religion... But all that science talk, it seems so... dry, sterile...

In your journey, leave yourself open to all the possibilities... Spirituality.... It's not a mysterious outside force... it is a beautiful sense of the universe and ourselves that transcends words and mere anatomy and physiology... that connects us all... and leaves us to wonder... what did she really see in those branches heavy with snow?

I think you're selling yourself short by getting all caught up in something that really should set you free... being powerless means you can choose not to fight it any more.

ZZworldontheweb

Murray4x5:

"If I had kept progressing I too would have had awful withdrawal symptoms and my brain would have a harder time using logic and reason against instinctive basal urges"

Well, withdrawal symptoms are not just strong basal urges, they have physical manifestations like heart arrhythmia, hypertensive spikes and seizures. They can be directly fatal without medical treatment. I don't think you're saying you have the power to control your autonomic body functions through conscious thought, nor do I think you're suggesting people risk death to prove a point about self-reliance.

I'm not an expert on your situation, but if you were able to stop on your own, maybe you're not an alcoholic, but just a binge drinker.

Alternatively, if you are a true alcoholic and WERE able to quit totally on your own, then I congratulate you on being a member of a tiny statistical minority of super-men. Unfortunately, being an outlier, your experiences are of little bearing to us average humans, except to increase our shame. Perhaps this is your goal. If so, I wish that you benefit from it.

tomvlll

....I will find a sponsor and go through the 12 steps ASAP. In doing so will find that power and recover from the maddening obsession of alcoholism. And then I'll pass that on to another alkie. And I'll live happily ever after.

Just wanted your story to have a happy ending .

YEah it could-your choice.

Murray4x5

Please read that sentence again, and I hope you'll see that you misunderstood what I had written. I was up to six days a week and passing out each time. The next step on the downward slope of alcoholism would have been for me to start drinking in the mornings. Had I continued progressively increasing my intake of alcohol, I would have had withdrawal symptoms as well.

If it makes you feel better to call me a binge drinker, go ahead, but I see myself as an alcoholic who jumped off the bus before it went over the cliff.

You're getting mad just like I did when 15 years ago a co-worker saw me fail to quit smoking cigarettes for the umpteenth time, and he said to me, "I don't understand...all you have to do is decide". That comment wormed itself so far under my skin that it pi$$ed me off for weeks. Then I realized that in the end, he was right; if I decided never to smoke again, and didn't, then that's all there was to it. Soon after his comment I started reading about how addiction changes a persons brain, and how given time it will return to 'normal', and I quit smoking for good. Maybe going through that process gave me the tools to quit alcohol as well, I don't know.

There are quite a few people here on SR who quit for good on their first try, and many of them have years under their belts. Not one of them would want to rub your nose in that, and neither would I. This thread was about the concept of powerlessness, so I thought I would share my views on that.

As much as it chafes, it boils down to simply deciding never to drink again. Who cares if it's done solo or with a hundred helping hands, or with the good wishes of a single or a hundred deities. I wish everybody the most direct path possible.

Murray

Murray4x5

Hi Mark75,

Your points are well taken. I may not be spiritual in a religious fashion, but I am very in tune with Nature where I live. When I walk into the old growth forests up here I feel embraced. I see the whole of the Earth, all the living things upon it, and the whole of the Universe as an interrelated, existence sustaining system. I have been places where the emanated power was palpable, where it felt as if the forest had eyes.

It helps me to know the scientific and physiological reasons for my addiction, to know why I have urges and that they will diminish in intensity and frequency over time...that it isn't some unnamed mysterious compulsion to drink despite all the negativity it brought to my life. It gives my enemy a face.

I do have a sense of powerlessness, but it has always been in Nature; like when waiting out a vicious storm in the mountains, or when contemplating what will happen to Humanity when the next Mount Everest sized asteroid collides with the Earth.

For now, my being knuckle headed and very opinionated about my being 100% responsible for my sobriety probably has some bearing on my being able to stay sober, don't you think? If I feel that resolve slipping in any way I'll crawl begging to whatever resource will help me stay sober, because I don't want to die in such a family rending, child scaring, slow, painful, and ugly death.

Murray

LaFemme

I'm not sure why we all have to feel the same things and approach this problem the same way. I believe in God, I believe He helped me get sober...not so much because I was powerless but more becase that's what God does.

If someone gets sober a different way it causes me no shame and doesn't effect me at all. I find a lot of comfort in understanding the science of what happened. Its how I approach problems. Use whatever tools work for you.

Right now I am powerless to help my sick dog. I have given her what aid I can based on my basic veterinary knowledge and I will monitor her for the next hour and hope she improves. Will I say a quick prayer for her...sure...but I will also take her to the vet in the morning if she isn't better.

ZZworldontheweb

Murray, I certainly acknowledge the role of personal courage in staying sober.

But just to be clear, are you, or are you not, saying that people should attempt to survive heart arrhythmia and seizures without medical treatment, using force of will alone?

I think it's important that suffering readers here, who may need medical detox, are not put in physical danger by misconceptions.

If you've already covered this and I've missed it, I apologize.

Veritas1

As I read this, I immediately think of "Lack of power, that was our dilemma".

Lack of power...powerless... seems like the same thing to me.

Seems like powerless is in more than just one place in the book.

I could be wrong. I am still learning.

~

Quote from AA BB 1rst edition

RobbyRobot

I hear you. Although we don't agree here on alcoholism, hard-drinking, and recovery, our disagreement is not a problem for either of us and more than that we both have life experiences that have us both walking away from anymore drunkeness with alcohol, and into sober lives notwithstanding our differences. Like I said, it is really what each of us honestly embrace which makes all the difference in our individual lives. Live and let live.

Rob

Murray4x5

No, I'm not saying that at all.

I was lucky to have stopped drinking when I did. I didn't have any really bad withdrawal symptoms, but I still went and told my doctor who ran the requisite blood and urine tests, just to be sure.

I may be doing this solo without any face to face support group, but I'm hardly alone due to SR and all the good people here willing to help each other. I can honestly say that I wouldn't have been able to get this far without that unwavering support!!!!!!!

Murray

Mark75

Ah... but, we are in complete agreement here... I am 100% responsible for my sobriety... I just quit being in charge, so to speak, to be open to the wonders of nature and to find a higher purpose.... a power greater than I.

We are not so different.

Bamboozle

I can't speak for Murray, but I can say how I differ in my view of science. Science is anything but dry and sterile. I have a vast appreciation for how things actually work and I must say it's beautiful. I enjoy learning--to me that's 'Wow!' and 'Pizzazz'.

I highly recommend Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

NYCDoglvr

I got sober in AA because that was the only route. But today there are physicians who are addiction specialists and much more is know about the disease.

HBO had a wonderful series, "Addiction." which shows there are more options now, such as cognitive therapy and medication that cuts down craving for alcohol.

All the information from the HBO show can be found here: HBO: Addiction. I learned more in a few hours than in a decade and a half of sobriety.