This is where when everything else has failed, AA worked.
What did you do before you felt compelled to drink?
1. Did you pray?
2. Did you pick up the phone and call someone?
3. Did you read in the Big Book?
4. Did you go to a meeting?
These were the questions my sponsor would ask me after I sobered up from my last drinking spree. This is what they mean by choice. When it comes to alcohol. I had no choice. I drank it even if it meant losing my wife, kids and house. I would find myself at the convience store buying a 12 pack of beer and was near passing out before I realized what I was doing. I never picked up that phone. I wanted to stop the feelings inside me now and I know that after years of drinking that alcohol did the trick. What the program teaches us, at first, is to intercept the compulsion to drink by some means. That is where the prayer and phone call come in. Basically we break the cycle. We get a new habit that when things make us feel like we want a drink, we do the other things to prevent it. These things serve us well to remove the feelings that make us take that drink. Our choice is a) do the same thing as before and drink or b) pick up that 500 pound phone. The BB and the meetings serve as positive reinforcement. They also serve as maintanence to prevent us from drinking. What gets most of us is when we are feeling Restless, Irratible and discontent (RID). When we are feeling that way, it is for a reason. Perhaps we are Humgry, Angry, Loniley, or Tired (HALT). If we allow ourselves two or more of these we are more than likely going to try and relieve the feeling the "best" way we know how. For the alcoholic, the "best" way means taking that drink. If you are alcoholic, you will not stop with that one drink. If you are Hungry, eat something, angry, pray, lonily, call someone or go to a meeting, tired, just sleep.
These are just the tools and baby steps that we must practice on a daily basis. For the obession to drink, we need to work a rigours program. Sponsorship and the 12 steps do much to remove that complusion to drink. We have to maintain our sobriety or we will surely drink. Meeting makers make it. It might sound like a silly slogan, but it works. When I am feeling RID, or sad, or depressed, or mired in my own self pity, going to meetings works wonders. Typically, I am thinking about what everyone is shareing so I get out of my own head and listen to others who share the same problems or have it worse than me. It is true what they say at AA, it works if you work it.