This is the way that I see it.

I am powerless over alcohol in that when I take the first drink I can not safely predict if/when I will stop. If my drinking problem stopped right there, everything would be dandy because I just wouldn't take the first drink, thereby not 'setting the terrible cycle in motion'. However, the problem with the alcoholic 'centers in his mind rather than is his body' (BB page 23) this is because the powerlessness of the alcoholic does not stop at the physical (phenomenon of craving) we also have the mental obsession that drives the alcoholic to pick up the first drink - it is THIS that renders alcoholics so unable to quit drinking and stay stopped through CHOICE. Therefore powerlessness as we in AA understand it refers to the physical inability to contol drinking once begun AND the inability to choose whether or not to pick up that first drink.

When I first got sober, I thought that my Higher Power gave me the power to choose not to drink, BUT when I got to Step 10 and read the promises, the Big Book clearly states that 'and we have ceased fighting anything or anyone even alcohol for by this time sanity will have returned.' (pages 84/5)

This means that all desire for alcohol has gone and I do not have to make a choice in the morning because there is now no part of me that wants alcohol, I don't have to, or need to make a choice because 'the problem has been removed' (page85) - this therefore indicates that I have recovered, although of course the physiological response to alcohol cannot be treated and should I take another drink, the phenomenon of craving will kick off, so no cure, but recovery that is real available and lasting.

Therefore having 'choice' about whether to drink each day or not is not something that I have to concern myself with, and if I could choose whether or not to take the FIRST drink, I would not have needed or wanted the 12 step programme, I could have just chosen not to drink.

I have a question....does AA want you to admit you are powerless, meaning you are powerless to stop drinking on your own OR that you are powerless once you pick up the first drink?

Because personally I have really struggled with the powerlessness part of AA....because I am the one with the choice to pick up the first one or not...

But, I also KNOW that I am pretty powerless when it comes to what happens after I chose to pick up the first one....

I am really confused about what the first step means now....what "powerless" really means in AA terms....

If you have choice whether to pick up the first drink or not then you probably dont need AA. Just exert that power of choice that you have, dont pick up the first drink and you will never get drunk.

One of the most convincing speakers I ever heard at an AA meeting was a lady who got sober when she was 25. After 20 years of raising a family and becoming a minor real estate mogul in the highly competitive southern Connecticut market, she said she figured she had it licked and started cutting back on meetings, etc. Five years later, at age 50, she was at a reception, the kind she had been to dozens of times in sobriety, and she literally did not hear herself say to the bartender, "Bourbon and ginger, please." She said she didn't even realize it was alcohol she had just swallowed until she was asking for a refill.

Over the next two years she drank herself to a bottom she couldn't have dreamed possible, losing home, family, career and several teeth-- wife, mother, socialite, entrepteneur and pillar of the community to bag lady pushing a shopping cart through Sherwood Square in Westport, CT picking trash out of the cans-- all in two years flat. She had been sober a year and a half the second time around when I heard her speak, and the last thing she said was, "...and I'm still very shaky."

In other words, despite her long and happy sobriety, she still had no mental defense whatsoever against that first drink. Her case is unusual only in that she regained sobriety at all. Most who relapse after a long dry spell die within a few years after they resume drinking. As offensive as this stark fact may be to any of our personal convictions, that has been our experience.

Well this is how I was functional:
Come Monday morning I would have the shakes so badly that I would get up and drink 3 -5 beers at 5:30 am and stop by 7am so I would have an hour before work that I did not drink.
I lived extrememly close to my work. Very, very close. Come home at lunch time and drink 2 -3 beers.
Any sane person knows they can't keep that up and keep their job.
I have nobody to fall back on financially.
It's all me or nothing.
So I came up with something I could tolerate.
4 beers during the week so I didn't have the shakes in the morning.
No shakes in the morning means I wouldn't have to drink in the mornings.
Of course,,,,,no drinking at all means I don't even have to worry about that crap.
So even though I functioned, it was out of control.
Oh well.
On to sobriety and no more shame.

At some point, everyone here knows they have a problem and any of us can go out on the innernets and find horror stories from AA attendees, success stories from RR/SMART etc, statistics on success/failure, scientific studies, religious studies and there's still no agreement this is actually a disease! They've removed the term 'alcoholic' from the American Med books by the way. Big deal, it's back to 'dependence' and 'abuse' (the latter being Drunk-Lite) but does it matter?

Once you realize you have a problem, you still make a personal choice to attend a meeting, not pick up the first drink, to drink, etc. To me, that's seems like personal will involved there but I don't claim to know what will work for everyone. If some of you feel turning your will over to some power and it works, great.

This debate on AA vs. Not-AA, all the semantics thrown around here is tiring. As a newbie, I'm wondering how this is supposed to help? This is as bad as Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice... YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO CONVINCE THE OTHER SIDE!!! At least in this debate, if the end result is that the person is NOT DRINKING who fucking cares???

I'm going to see if I can start a forum called "My Way Is The Only Way" and all the anti-AA people, the AA Nazis can all go yell at each other over there while hopefully, some of us more rational folks who are looking for a way(s) to not drink can enjoy the value in other people's ways of getting sober! The only people's posts I've found to be of value are the ones who make suggestions and realize there may be more than one way to do this thing (considering we're not all clones, that seems kinda logical to me).

Nicky - sorry to answer your post this way but all this is getting out of hand. I know you posted it with implied innocence but these topics continue to fan the flames of both sides and I personally am disappointed that I came here hoping to learn and every day I'm getting irritated that I read a post I think will be helpful to me and it's spiralled into the same tired argument.

Have a great sober turkey day and try to resist coming on here everyone if your point is just to continue this useless debate. Go argue on a political or religious forum where those folks are looking for a fight, not for support. (sorry for the profanity, you know it's not my usual).

Ashley8888 You need to get your sponsor (or get one if you haven't got one) to take you through the Big Book, it clearly explains powerlessness. I have also tried to explain it in my first post, maybe have a look and pm me if you want to ask anything??

I DO have the power of choice when it comes to alcohol. After years of working in the field and study as well as personal reflection I have found out some things that, at times, cause distress to some in AA. I happen to believe there is a pattern to relapse that has no primary relationship to having a drink.
The root of the problem is selfishness and self-centeredness. What happens is we allow places things and situations (any place where people are involved) to govern how we feel. Whether that be depression, anxiety, whatever feeling manifests itself we want to experience SOME type of ease and comfort from that "pain". Our experience has always been a substance that alters or numbs out those feelings. Rather than go through the experience of waiting for what that "psychic change" offers we begin to obsess on the instant fix finally giving in by making that fatal decision expressed in 2 words... fuck it. Which by the way is a CHOICE.

When something can be such an obsession that it can cause all the chaos that booze caused me,it is a very powerful thing indeed.I had such strength and such an iron will over so many things,but alcohol kicked my ass eight ways to Sunday.The BB reading that Nicky brought up kinda sums it all up-the insanity of the first drink.My sponsor told me when I was trying to stop(unsuccessfully)that I had all the power in the world until I took the first drink,then I was powerless.He was quite right.I tried any number of things to control it,and it beat me worse every time.Then,I had too much pain from my disease's consequences to be able to not take the first drink.It took some time for me to realize how powerless I was.Too long.

If you are only powerless AFTER you picked up the first drink, why the hell did you??? I just don't get it!!

I can't help you there, I lost control long time ago when it comes to drinking. The only choice for me to day is to not pick up that drink.

That's my point though Mike, if I could CHOOSE not to pick up a drink, like you say you can do why would I need AA? If you can CHOOSE not to pick up the first drink, why did you???

I wonder if you have the thoughts that I used to have, that God gives me the POWER not to drink, therefore I can CHOOSE to use that power or not.

That is very much at odds with the 10th step promises which clearly state that 'we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, EVEN ALCOHOL, for by this time SANITY will have returned......we are not fighting it neither are we avoiding temptation... we feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead THE PROBLEM HAS BEEN REMOVED.'

This means that as a recipient of those promises, I do not have the problem of having to choose, there is no problem! Thterefore, I do not ever have to make a choice. The only choice I make today is whether or not I live a spiritual life, but of course if I don't, I will end up drinking again because the only way that we stay sober is through the practising the programme and living selfless lives based upon spiritual principles.

I think that because of the widespread recovey program. Some folks arrive before complete alcoholic collapse.They maybe had a bit of control left , I dunno I was pretty much a basket case myself.I wasn't drinking but my brain was squriming in my head.The mental fog they talk about was pretty thick.Like friend used to say : I never want to sober-up again.

Nemo, joining a support group, you think, is an admission of powerlessness? No. Absolutely not. It doesn't even mean you have a problem. Some people join to help others.

If anyone were really powerless, then they would have no control whatsoever, and they would never get better.

In order for people to get better, they must have some power.

That's the bottom line, and the only thing that makes sense. There's no room for debate.

It's just absurd that people can follow a program that's first step requires they admit defeat (powerlessness=defeat).

Number4940,

Well, I'll tell ya what, dude. No insult intended, but I just read your profile and I wouldn't trade my 24/7 quality of life for almost the last 20 years for yours for ten seconds.