RobbyRobot

I don't believe for a second that struggling with staying quit means a person isn't ready to quit. So many reasons exist besides staying quit in a life after alcoholic drinking. Not every struggle in life is about our past drinking or even a fear of future drinking. Life is often enough a worthy struggle in its own right.

Telling others they are not ready to stay quit is like the teller saying they have nothing left to give. Its not about being ready to quit. What is ready to quit? Are we not different enough individually as persons that being ready is really only totally subjective for each and every one of us?

I couldn't care less how many old timers tell a newcomer they are not ready. I don't agree with their arrogance and their dogmatic presumptions. I myself am an old timer. Longevity itself doesn't mean I have special insights into whatever. Life experience does provide such insights, but a person has to live a life to be experienced. All to often old timers as well as newcomers simply don't return to drinking and eschew the life experience of a truly recovered life.

Of course quitting works. Its amazing how people claim they just quit drinking, like they discovered the most awesome solution. Well, yeah, how else does one stop? And yeah other people claim that without this or that they would return to drinking. And so what? Don't we all have a right to live our freedom as we get to it?

These posts are really just small snapshots of the lives of posters. As the years go on, and this thread becomes history with the other hundreds of thousands of threads, it gives one pause, yeah?

I have adapted so many different ways after I quit. I've learned just how many paths exist up and down and all around the mountain, lol. I really have sympathy for those who even consider that someone else would do better for themselves if only they did what they were told the same moment they were told.

Success speaks for itself. We don't need others making out like they have it going on while others are losers in the game of life. For those people who talk as if they have a special crystal ball into the years coming day by day, they may want to realize that quitting isn't rocket science, and how people want to live their lives thereafter is their own damn business, yeah?

Nobody knows so much they are somehow bullet proof against what life can serve up at any moment. There is more to life than simply quitting. More to life than simply being sober. Life is to be lived more than it is to be talked about...

Lance40

Being powerless over alcohol for me is being hung over, tired and not even feeling like drinking on the walk home from work but then somehow at the last minute still veering off the sidewalk to go through those sliding glass doors at the liquor store and going through the motions of buying and cracking open a bottle and starting to glug while everything inside of me is feeling sick and sad at what I am doing - and then after all that somehow thinking that if I just drink enough water or get enough sleep that I won't be hung over the next day.

Serenidad

That's the way I felt until I read everyone's comments. Now I understand that I am powerless over alcohol AFTER I drink it. I give my power over to the alcohol & do crazy things that I would NEVER do sober! I guess that's what they are trying to say. Makes sense because I would never get a DUI if I wasn't drinking and driving. If I was eating a cheeseburger while driving....I bet I'd be able to walk a straight line after. Haha. Or would I? Lol

Serenidad

Ha ha TRUE!!!

Serenidad

I like that! That's the hang up I had with the powerless thing.

Now I see that when I drink it's like strapping myself into a roller coaster. Once that roller coaster starts going up that hill...I'm truly powerless over whether or not that roller coaster makes it safely back down that hill. If I don't get on the roller coaster at all..no worries! I have power. I hate roller coasters! Lol

Serenidad

The powerless thing has been a problem for me for a long time too which is why started this thread. The one thing I like about AA is that you are among friends instantly. Everyone in the rooms truly "gets it" and have been to hell and back.

There was a guy last night in a meeting that was talking about a girl that was in and out of the AA rooms for years and just couldn't get sober. She sadly died. He was talking about her funeral. He said that there were about 200 people there and 175 of them were people from AA. That spoke volumes about how much the people in AA care. Apparently the family of the girl who died was shocked at how many people from AA came and really cared about their daughter.

TiredEnough

Haha, at this point I think the cheeseburger would have me weaving. Carb overload.

To me, its semantics. Powerless after you start drinking/drugging or powerless not to start? Thats the thing. I think there is plenty of power here. Lots of folks not drinking today and many of us not popping pills.

TiredEnough

I meant not drinking/drugging. I cant say if anyone other than me is powerless or not. Thats up to them.

Soberwolf

I decided to thank every single comment as there is a lot of of sobriety in that thread and its awesome

In a way...

were either He man's or She ra's (i have the powwwwer) or prince adam or princess adora powerless but
in full control of thier powwwwer (shout outs to cringer/battlecat and spirit/swiftwind.....80's cartoons rocked) thier pets btw

either way congrats to every one of you on your sober time

jakec

To me, and what I was taught it AA, is that powerless means that I can't stop drinking or using once I start and if I do stop, I can't stay stopped.

For me(I'm talking about myself, not anyone else), I WILL use or drink again NO MATTER WHAT if I don't have a higher power to keep me sober. "We are without defense against the first drink"

A lot of people disagree with me when I say I myself do not have a choice whether I'm going to use again. Because for me I believe that is just the plain truth, as outragious as that sounds even to the people here. BUT I do have a choice to go through the rest of the 12 steps in order to find a a higher power in order to keep me from picking up the first one.

No other outlook on the steps as ever worked for me.

Hawks

Best explanation of the first step that I've ever heard is from Clancy I

(50 plus years of continuous sobriety...... I'd say he got that first step nailed)

He also admits to ten or so years of being in and out of AA..... Which is on this recording too.

XA-Speakers - The lights are on!

As you know, I drank again too.

Best thing that ever happened to me?

In a paradoxical way.... Yes.

Certainly crushed out that last flame of hope that I might ever be able to drink like a gentleman or "normal " person..... Whatever they are

Venecia

As adjectives go, I think "powerless" is particularly ripe for interpretation. Lots of terrific responses here.

My own .02 is that it meant "game over." As one of my classmates here on SR once wisely observed, my long experiment with moderation was done. I couldn't do it.

And that gave me a new power, one I hope lasts the rest of my life.

freshstart57

Many here claim powerlessness over alcohol, and point to what happens after they start drinking. I think for all of us, our thought processes and decision making ability goes right out the window after a snootful. That's as plain as the nose on Dee's old avatar. Once we start, we can't stop.

For me, this was never a helpful approach, claiming to be powerless. I looked for ways to regain this power, not accept its loss forever. What I did was to refuse to ever take another drink, so this whole powerlessness that is the result of a few drinks never can apply to me. I took that power back from alcohol by deciding to never drink it again. And that's the end of it.

Instead of parsing the meaning of this single word, I chucked it and alcohol and all the rest of its misery out the window. I did that by making that decision to never drink again, no matter what. There's things to do, important things, fun things, satisfying things. Things need doing that make life worth living. Onward!

MelindaFlowers

I continued to drink in spite of the negative consequences from drinking.

DarkLife

i know what powerless means, it means i am miserable. hope that helps.

desypete

i am powerless to convince anyone about being powerless

Serenidad

Good one desy! :-)