360shoes

I voted yes.
I have no control over the chemical properties of alcohol. It's designed to get life forms drunk. If Mother Theresa drank too much of it, she would have gotten drunk too.

It even messes up lab rats.

Now what I do have control of is whether I drink it or not. I can't change it but I can sure change me.

And that's about all I need to know about power or no power. Just me.

Riel

You are powerless over your cravings for alcohol.

You are completely in control over whether you ingest alcohol.

If you think you have control over your cravings, ask whether you can control your thoughts. Do you know what thought is coming next? And remember, hubris attracts nemesis.

If you believe that you are powerless over your ability to choose whether to ingest alcohol, you are risking relapse by giving power to your cravings that they do not possess. No matter how badly you want/need a drink, you can choose not to take one.

Gargery

Am I powerless over alcohol?

Only when I drink it.

Pagekeeper

Six years sober and I voted ... Yes!

I am still powerless over alcohol. Sure, there are days that I have kept myself sober. I used willpower, distraction, whatever. Quite miserable. But there are other times I know it was not me. Thing is, given a certain situation, a certain context, scenario, I don't believe all the willpower in the world would help me. I'm not perfect, and I like to run the show. However, I most humbly admit I have not kept myself sober for six years. The credit does not belong to me. And as weird as this may sound, I'm not a bit religious. I would call myself agnostic, I guess ... my Hp is more of something I feel inside ... I don't have to understand it. I just have to trust it. And I do.

dSober

I'm not sure I understand it either, but I sometimes call it humility. Alcohol brought me to my knees. It humbled me.

Carlygirl

I am starting to accept that I am powerless. I am frightened. When I started drinking again after a few months sober, my counsellor asked what was I going to do to stop my intake escalating. That didn't worry me too much. Midweek, I always put the cork back in the bottle. That was a few months ago. Three weeks ago, I noticed the cork didn't go back in. I finish the bottle every single night. And I didn't decide to do that. So, who is making the decisions? Who has the power? I am taking control back.

RobbyRobot

My past experiences too. My alcoholic mind was doing the thinking for me is what I discovered eventually. My addiction if you will. My alcoholism.

Who has the power?

For me, its all on my alcoholism when it comes to drinking. For me, I chose to quit, and from there journey onto to a sober lifestyle. As for control, I always had the control alcoholism or no alcoholism. With the control goes responsibility to make use of that same control. I decided to quit. I controlled how that quit happened.

When I drank though, I sold out my control to my alcoholism so as I could drink with the delusion I was being responsible to my wants and needs relative to my obsessions with my addiction ie my chronic alcoholism. I drank for what alcohol did for me. And when it didn't I drank anyways even though it didn't satisfy. I was deluded. No matter how much I sold myself out, I was still responsible of course...

It was all an addictive game so as to enable me to continue to justify my drinking. This craziness existed wholly within my alcoholic mind.

YOU have the power to quit. Quitting will further empower you to do the next right thing to sustain your quit and journey into a better life sober than you could ever hope to have while drinking. Best wishes!

dSober

I found I was both, after many attempts to control my drinking. When I finally surrendered, I found what I needed to stop. I just had to start doing the next right thing, always. Drinking wasn't one of them. I'm not frightened anymore.

Zencat

A. I was powerless because: I did drink to drunkenness even when I committed myself with all my will, my might , my determination to stop drinking.

B. I was inept because: I did drink to drunkenness even when I committed myself with all my will, my might , my determination to stop drinking.

B. Inept in that I returned to drinking because I had no social skills/coping strategies/recovery tools to learn through practice. Skills can include AAs 12 Step program for continued sobriety. I just see powerless as a lack of training for a sober life . I see it in a worldly way. My "HP" is vast wide array of; support, learning, being helped by others and also helping others, practice, patience, persistence...etc. And more learning and continued practice in sober living.

Zen. There's do or not to do. Always practice both at all times.

Be well everybody

thisisme

No.
I have no desire to drink paint. I hold all the power now.
Never again.

lebroncavs

I'm not powerless. If I was powerless I wouldn't be able to be sober ever. The disease is what tells us we're powerless. When we get sick of listening to that stupid voice we can get sober.

dSober

That's pretty funny considering I just posted in another thread we should have gotten jobs in a paint store. It was more to make use of the withdrawl shakes however, lol.

All kidding aside, I did drink rubbing alcohol a couple times. Fortunately I wasn't quite insane enough to gulp the whole bottles. Wasn't very far from it though. Maybe that was power? Maybe not.

Zencat

Ack .

I did huff glue/spray paint to get rid of alcohol cravings. Zombie land that it. Not so much a power thing. Absolute insanity part of the illness.

Peace

airwick

I agree strongly with this female/male

BackToSquareOne

Even if you can't be truely powerless addiction has a way of stacking the deck to get what it wants.

whalebelow2

When Bill W wrote the steps he very nearly started step one with

We admitted we were licked .....

I don't think anyone would have a problem with that. Maybe Bill could have put "We admitted alcohol had kicked our butts thoroughly"

Who would have a problem with that statement ??

I can't help wondering if he had put that, instead of we admitted we were powerless, just how much controversy there would be over one word.

It seems to have a life of it's own this "Powerless" debate.

Notice it uses "were" --- past tense.

It doesn't say, "we admitted that we are & shall ever more be"

It really is a moot point in my opinion.

dSober

I don't see how the rest of the steps would fit with not admitting powerlessness from the get-go. The whole point is to find and use a higher power to change your life.

MidnightBlue

No.

Personally, I don't like the word "powerless". It's vague and discouraging.

I may be powerless over a brick wall if I keep taking run and banging my head against it. Doesn't mean I don't have a choice to stop doing this.

thisisme

This is a reference to Allen Carr and his belief(and mine) that alcohol is poison, does nothing and takes all.
Alcohol is paint.

Best.

stairs

I don't think it's a cut and dried question. To say one is powerless over a bottle of vodka seems ridiculous until one ingests the vodka, buys more and more, and stays drunk for a month or a year. Then it doesn't seem quite so far fetched.

True, I had chosen to drink, to buy the booze. But somewhere early on, the choice became a driving compulsive need so was it really a choice? No, I would go to great lengths to procure my beloved vodka.

More of a choice on steroids. A choice made by a mind ruled by chaos and darkness, that kept choosing the vodka in spite of my life sliding into a ruinous state.

I believe that what I'm really powerless over is my subconscious mind and repressed childhood memories that drive me to negate myself, to repeat the same self defeating behaviors.