hey dude, I got it 1076 days ago !!!!!

Hey Dan, you are still splitting hairs but that's cool.
I am still waiting to see if anyone can answer Nicky's question in a realistic, workable way i.e. that they can make a lasting and comfortable choice not to drink if they are an alcoholic working the Steps.

Gailly, maybe you haven't been in on this running debate. There are those here who have posted in the past who take the whole idea of not having a choice literally.

You say: "...they can make a lasting and comfortable choice not to drink..." so you agree with me. If any alcoholic, anytime can, under any circumstances, make any choice at all about whether to drink or not to drink, then I rest my case.

Call it splitting hairs if you like. There are many things in the program that hairs are split over.

Thanks for being involved in this discussion Gailly.

For me it can't be a chioce.... Chioce is freedom ...And when it comes to alcahol I have no freedom...But now that I know I don't have that freedom ... I have in fact been set free.... If that makes sense.....

Dan, don' t take my words out of context - I said
"I am still waiting to see IF anyone can answer Nicky's question in a realistic, workable way i.e. that they can make a lasting and comfortable choice not to drink if they are an alcoholic working the Steps."
Nobody has come back to say that yet, my guess is they can't.
Triaxle, you do make sense. Any choice we have as active alkies is effectively gone in the sense that we cannot choose never to drink again.
This is the problem with hair splitting! Keep it up though Dan, I am warming to you.

What I decided before I ever went to my first meeting is that I could never put alcohol behind me for real without help.

I also am convinced that one drink now is too many and a million wouldn't be enough. Like the book says, I'm like a man who has lost his legs, they won't grow back. I will never be able to drink normally, so I must never drink at all.

I hope that helps.

I feel that I must be different from many people here.

I would find it impossible to count the number of times I have made a choice not to drink that day, been determined not to drink that day, wanted not to drink that day more than anything else in the world. Been threatened with losing my job, losing my family etc etc and still ended the day completely drunk.

I spent a lot of my life trying not to drink and I could never guarantee that I wouldnt. I could never say I choose not to drink today and be sure that I wouldnt.

I have also seen women who have been told if you drink again you will lose you children and they drink again. They love their children, they are devastated to lose them and yet they still drink - are they really making the choice.

I agree that it says in the big book "At certain times we are without mental defence against the first drink" - thus implying that we do at times have a defence. But I for one could never know when that would be and certainly could not rely on it for sobriety - I couldnt choose when I would or wouldnot have that defence.

I do have a choice today to live by spiritual principles so that whether I drink or not never comes down to my choice. If it did I would be drunk again.

I didnt really post this thread as a debate about choice. I was interested in how people can reconcile that they are powerless and have a choice.

But c'est le vie - I am sadly not in control of what you all post!! (lol)

"i.e. that they can make a lasting and comfortable choice not to drink if they are an alcoholic working the Steps."

Gailly, I think that is the PRECISE IDEA behind working the Steps. The BB tells me that I must have a PSYCHIC CHANGE, i.e. a change in the way I think. As THE result of working the Steps, I have that psychic change, I am recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, and am able to have a choice.

I exercise my ability to choose everytime I get my lazy ass off the couch and to a meeting, everytime I work with another alcoholic, everytime I work the Steps. My life in AA is a constant choice to live sober. Thanks to the Grace of my HP and the Steps, that choice is not a difficult one.

I still can't control what happens when I put alcohol into my body...but I do have the choice whether or not I will take that action.

Ok so here's my question if you are one of those people who believe that they are choosing not to drink today, therefore implying that conversely you can choose to drink, how come when someone comes on here and posts 'oh shit guys, I relapsed again, doesn't anyone say 'Well, it was your choice?'

I do not subscribe to the idea that I can choose not to drink today. When I was drinking, I would always be convinced that I was choosing to drink, now that I accept that I do not have to power to choose, I never have to choose anyway!

Off the top of my head, I would say because we have become a "softer, gentler" AA, trying to spare people's feelings, but that is a whole new kettle of fish.

But...to get to your question, my sobriety, and therefore, my ability to have choice, is subject to my spiritual condition. If I stay in the psychic change, and continue working the steps, I will have I stayed recovered. When I stop doing these things, I put my sobriety and choice in jeopardy.

You misunderstand me, MichVonM, we are talking Step 1 here. Any "choice" we exercise is very fleeting - it cannot be a sustainable choice. It is a world away from the actual choice we exercise upon a spiritual awakening. I am an alcoholic I am powerless over alcohol and will still be powerless if I pick up again, however long I remain sober. God gives me the choice to stay sober. I no longer have the mental obsession if I remain in fit spiritual condition.

I just have to share my experience here. The freedom I have as a recovered alcoholic, is that I never have to choose at all. I don't have to ever consider whether I am going to drink or not.

It isn't an issue at all for me, I don't have to even think about it. This is not delusional, or denial, it is simply a fulfilment of the Step 10 promises.

Now then, if my HP has restored me to sanity (and he must've done or else I would be drinking), why would I then behave in an insane manner and stop doing the very things that promise me permanent sobriety, either I have been restored to sanity or I have not.

If I have not then we are all fucked because that is the premise upon which the 12 steps are based.

I know what my truth is today!

Gailly, Thanks for the clarification. I guess if I had read your entire post, I would have replied appropriately, but I'm still an alcoholic, with knee-jerk reactions.

You got me on that one, except for that I have to "no longer fight". When I surrendered, I was finally able to get some relief. I will have to think on this one and get back to you.

"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".
I agree with the above excerpt from BB- I believe we have lost have power of choice in drink. What I am trying to get across is that, at times, I have managed to hold off for a SHORT WHILE - only because I have run out and am too ill to get any more - or out of fear to protect my supply. I do not feel in any way I have a choice TO drink - as in drink and stop at will, just that I have a choice today NOT to drink and that is easy for me. I don't ever want to drink.

Good post! Interesting topic. I've never had a problem admitting I had a problem. You get drunk till your deathly ill and there is no denying you have a problem. The second part when you put choice in the equation was difficult for me. I guess for me to admitt I'm powerless over something is hard, but to be reolistic and even "intellectulize" over the topic I think to myself; if I was on an island alone with all I needed and wanted and had no responsibilities, worries, no one to be acountable to but myself, and a pile of Jack Daniels would I drink it? Right now the answer is yes and I think it may always be yes. This to me is powerless. If it was a pile of cheeseburgers and french fries I may have one or two and be full and leave the rest (and I love cheeseburgers and fries), but the Jack Daniels I would drink past the point of being full(drunk)untill I was passed out or was sick. This is a sick powerless behavior, so yes I'm powerless.