For my first few years, I would sit in meetings and say “I’m powerless over alcohol.”  And then I would drink.  Then I would come back and say “I’m powerless over alcohol.”  And then I would drink again.  This begs the question: “Just how powerless did I really think I was?”

I truly believe that I’m powerless over a bullet in a gun.  Do I really know that?  Well, not totally, but I have never put a gun to my head, and as I’m pulling the trigger say to myself:  “I’ll start again on Monday.”  My guess is that there would be no Monday for me.

So when I went to go drink during those slips, was I saying “The heck with 12 Step programs!  I’m done with them and I don’t care!”?  No.  I really wasn’t saying anything to myself, but if I were to stop and consider what was going on in the back of my head, it would have been something like: “I’m going to go break my sobriety, and when I’m ready I’ll come back and get it back.”

And this was the basis for my illusion of powerfulness over the addiction.  After all, how many times had I had slips in the past?  And after every one of them, I had come back and eventually gotten back on the beam.  That was the empirical proof that no matter how much I said I was powerless – I really wasn’t, was I?

I came to that realization one day after the umpteenth time I "went out" and came back.  I remember asking myself “Why did I drink again, after a few months of being clean?”  And a little voice in the back of my head said to me “You didn’t break lose your sobriety again, you haven’t had any real sobriety after your initial months of sobriety.”

And it was true.  I had periods of not drinking, but was that true abstinence?  Today, I don’t think it was.  I was just on another “in” cycle, waiting for the next “out” cycle to begin.

What I truly get in my gut today is a different outlook on the concept of powerlessness when it comes to my addiction.  I understand today that I am powerful over the alcohol – in the small picture.  But what I need to do is pull the camera out for the “wide shot” and look at my whole life in terms of my history in 12 Step programs.  And for me today, I get it:  I am powerless over my addiction… in the big picture.

How many people had I seen go out and come back - over and over, sometimes for the eleventh or twelfth time.  The trouble is I saw some of go out the 13th time and never come back.  Sadly, they had not just left program, they left this Earth.  Some as a result of the physical deterioration due to their substance.  Others died in car accidents.  And too many by their own hand. 

When I first came into program, people use to practically pound the podium and say “We don’t drink no matter what!”  It was a very strident, adamant kind of statement.  A while back, I heard the same concept put in a much gentler way.  The person said “If you are an addict, and you’ve made drinking or drugging an option, it will always be the only option.”  This is my great truth about my addiction.  The booze or the drugs, if I allow it, will always be the path of least resistance.  If I have a choice of going through emotional pain and turmoil, or drinking something took me into oblivion – and did something to calm that turmoil, it’s a no brainer!   Of course, I am going to go drink.  And that’s what I needed to realize – the real idea of powerlessness.  It just could not longer be an option to soothe my emotions.

And ironically, once I made that commitment to work through my problems, instead of getting back into the booze as a way of running away from them, I found life starting to get easier, because I had, truly, now taken Step One.  I was powerless over the alcohol.