Powerless Over Alcohol

The A.A. First Step, where people are supposed to "admit" that they are "powerless over alcohol", is a hoax.

People are not "powerless" over their desires to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, or take drugs. Being sick, and having a messed-up life from too much drinking, is just that — being sick. It isn't "powerlessness." Having difficulties quitting is not "powerlessness", it's having difficulties quitting. Saying that your drinking has really gotten out of control doesn't mean that you are powerless over it.

Quitting can be hard, extremely difficult and painful, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible, or that you can't do it. Remember: When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

The "powerless" doctrine of Alcoholics Anonymous is one of their most central religious beliefs. It is one of those points where A.A. radically departs from Christianity or any other mainstream religion of the world, and enters the bizarre realm of cult religion. A.A. teaches that people are incapable of running their own lives and must surrender control of their lives to the A.A. group and a "Higher Power" who will control them, and do the quitting for them. Thus the real purpose of Step One is to prepare the new members for Steps Two and Three, where they will confess that they are insane, and then surrender their wills and their lives to "the care of God" and the Alcoholics Anonymous group.

One of the biggest problems with the Twelve-Step program is the learned helplessness caused by the First Step, where people are taught to confess that they are "powerless over alcohol." This leads many people to believe that once they have a drink, that a full-blown relapse and total loss of self-control is inevitable and unavoidable.⁴

The other half of Step One, which says that "our lives had become unmanageable", leads some people to believe that they shouldn't even try to manage their lives. Step Two is just as bad: it teaches people that they are insane, and that only a Supernatural Being can restore them to sanity — which means that they are helpless, and cannot heal themselves. Then Step Three teaches a lifestyle of passive dependency, where A.A. members turn control of their wills and their lives over to "the care of God as we understood Him", and they expect God to run their lives and solve all their problems for them from then on...

The doctrine that alcoholics are "powerless over alcohol" came from the Oxford Group, Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman's cult religion. Dr. Buchman declared that people were "defeated by sin", and powerless over it, and unable to refrain from sinning, and only by surrendering to his cult religion could people escape from a life of sin. William Griffith Wilson, Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith, and Clarence Snyder were all members of this cult. They adapted Buchman's cult religion to a "program for alcoholism", and simply copied the entire cult religion and renamed it to "Alcoholics Anonymous". Bill Wilson just changed the word "sin" to "alcohol", and declared that alcoholics were "powerless over alcohol", and only by surrender to his cult religion could alcoholics escape from a lifetime of excessive drinking.

Bill Wilson routinely tried to cite the "powerless" idea and the disease theory of alcoholism to explain away his previous poor behavior. The official A.A. history book, "PASS IT ON", tells how Bill Wilson happily discovered that the disease theory of alcoholism relieved him of his feelings of guilt — it wasn't really his fault after all, because he was powerless over alcoholism:

      Bill listened, entranced, as Silkworth explained his theory. For the first time in his life, Bill was hearing about alcoholism not as a lack of willpower, not as a moral defect, but as a legitimate illness. It was Dr. Silkworth's theory — unique at the time — that alcoholism was the combination of this mysterious pysical "allergy" and the compulsion to drink; that alcoholism could no more be "defeated" by willpower than could tuberculosis. Bill's relief was immense.
'PASS IT ON': The story of Bill Wilson and how the A.A. message reached the world, Authorship credited to 'anonymous', actually written by A.A.W.S. staff, page 102.

So, in the Big Book, Bill Wilson wrote,

It relieved me somewhat to learn that in alcoholics the will is amazingly weakened when it comes to combating liquor, though it often remains strong in other respects. My incredible behavior in the face of a desperate desire to stop was explained. Understanding myself now, I fared forth in high hope. For three or four months the goose hung high. I went to town regularly and even made a little money. Surely this was the answer — self-knowledge.
      But it was not, for the frightful day came when I drank once more.
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, Chapter 1, "Bill's Story", page 7.

Why does he behave like this? If hundreds of experiences have shown him that one drink means another debacle with all its attendant suffering and humiliation, why is it he takes that one drink? Why can't he stay on the water wagon? What has become of the common sense and will power that he still sometimes displays with respect to other matters?
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, Chapter 2, "There Is A Solution", page 22.

Notice how Bill Wilson tried to equate unclear thinking and goofy behavior with proof of "powerlessness". That is the propaganda trick of False Equality — just imply that two very different things are the same thing. The fact that someone is behaving in an unwise manner — even in a suicidally stupid manner — does not prove that he is "powerless over alcohol". Nor does it prove that he is "powerless" over his desire to drink alcohol and get high. Nor does it prove that he has a "disease". It just means that he is being stupid and making poor choices, like choosing short-term pleasure over long-term health.

By the way, what Bill Wilson called "self-knowledge" was not self-knowledge. Bill Wilson was just using more buzz-words and high-falitin' language. Bill Wilson never knew himself. He never analyzed his clinical depression or Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Delusions of Grandeur. His jabber about "self-knowledge" is just more meaningless slogan-slinging.

Other stories in the Big Book declare:

It helped me a lot to become convinced that alcoholism was a disease, not a moral issue; that I had been drinking as a result of a compulsion, even though I had not been aware of the compulsion at the time; and that sobriety was not a matter of will power.
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 448.

On the contrary, sobriety is most assuredly a matter of will power and self-control.
Nobody else is going to do the quitting for you.
Nobody else CAN do the quitting for you.
Nobody else is going to hold your hand every Saturday night.

I now remembered what my alcoholic friends had told me, how they had prophesied that if I had an alcoholic mind, the time and place would come — I would drink again. They had said that though I did raise a defense, it would one day give way before some trivial reason for having a drink. Well, just that did happen and more, for what I had learned of alcoholism did not occur to me at all. I knew from that moment that I had an alcoholic mind. I saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots. I had never been able to understand people who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated. I knew then. It was a crushing blow.
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, Chapter 3, More About Alcoholism, pages 41-42.

Those "friends" (actually, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith) "prophesied" that alcoholics would suffer from "strange mental blank spots", where the alcoholism would seize control of their minds and "will power and self-knowledge would not help," and they would be drunk before they even realized what was happening. That is a great excuse for relapsing whenever someone craves a drink, but it is totally untrue. It is ridiculous pseudo-science.

People may rationalize their actions, or minimize the danger for a few minutes, or make up all kinds of stupid excuses for why it's okay to take that first drink, why it's okay to have just one (or two, or three...); they may sometimes even just refuse to think about the negative consequences of drinking because they really, really want that drink, but there is no blank spot where the alcoholic is unable to see that he is deliberately lifting a drink to his mouth, choosing to drink, and that he is voluntarily swallowing it. There is no blank spot where he doesn't have a choice, and can't control his hands or his mouth.

But Bill Wilson insisted that there was, and that he just couldn't help but take a drink whenever he got some cravings. Bill was nuts.

Bill continued:

Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power.
The Big Book, Chapter 3, William G. Wilson, More About Alcoholism, page 43.

No effective mental defense? You have to just hope that some Spirit or ghost or Higher Power will keep you from drinking? And this is the program whose members claim is the best alcoholism recovery program in the world?

Bill Wilson also wrote that A.A. members will all testify:

"I simply couldn't stop drinking, and no human being could seem to do the job for me. But when I became willing to clean house and then asked a Higher Power, God as I understood Him, to give me release, my obsession to drink vanished. It was lifted right out of me..."
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, pages 63-64.

Notice the really bizarre complaint:
"I simply couldn't stop drinking, and no human being could seem to do the job for me."
Bill Wilson didn't seem to understand that when you quit drinking, smoking, or drugging, you do it yourself.
No other human being can do the quitting for you.
It's really ridiculous to think that someone else could magically do the quitting for you. It's insane. But that's what Bill Wilson wanted: an easier, softer way where Somebody Else, like God, did all of the hard work for him, where somebody else did the quitting for him:

We will seldom be interested in liquor.
...
We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given to us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it.
...
We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us.
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, William G. Wilson, pages 84-85.

Now that is really a delusional cure for alcoholism. Without any thought or effort on our part, God just makes the problem disappear. Poof!

In his next book, Bill Wilson wrote:

We had approached A.A. expecting to be taught self-confidence. Then we had been told that so far as alcohol is concerned, self-confidence was no good whatever; in fact, it was a total liability. Our sponsors declared that we were the victims of a mental obsession so subtly powerful that no amount of human willpower could break it. There was, they said, no such thing as the personal conquest of this compulsion by the unaided will.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 22.

• Self-confidence is a total liability?
• No amount of human willpower can break the grip of alcoholism on a person?
• There is no such thing as the personal conquest of this compulsion by the unaided will?

That is ridiculous and pathetic. Everyone who successfully quits drinking uses his or her own will power. Everyone who stays quit uses his or her own will power every day and every night.

The Harvard Mental Health Letter, from The Harvard Medical School, stated quite plainly:

On their own
There is a high rate of recovery among alcoholics and addicts, treated and untreated. According to one estimate, heroin addicts break the habit in an average of 11 years. Another estimate is that at least 50% of alcoholics eventually free themselves although only 10% are ever treated. One recent study found that 80% of all alcoholics who recover for a year or more do so on their own, some after being unsuccessfully treated. When a group of these self-treated alcoholics was interviewed, 57% said they simply decided that alcohol was bad for them. Twenty-nine percent said health problems, frightening experiences, accidents, or blackouts persuaded them to quit. Others used such phrases as "Things were building up" or "I was sick and tired of it." Support from a husband or wife was important in sustaining the resolution.
Treatment of Drug Abuse and Addiction — Part III, The Harvard Mental Health Letter, Volume 12, Number 4, October 1995, page 3.
(See Aug. (Part I), Sept. (Part II), Oct. 1995 (Part III).)

The NIAAA's (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions interviewed over 43,000 people. Using the criteria for alcohol dependence found in the DSM-IV, they found:

      "About 75 percent of persons who recover from alcohol dependence do so without seeking any kind of help, including specialty alcohol (rehab) programs and AA. Only 13 percent of people with alcohol dependence ever receive specialty alcohol treatment."

So much for the sayings that
"Everybody needs a support group."
and
"Nobody can do it alone."
Most successful people do.

And note that the Harvard Medical School said that the support of a good spouse is more important than that of a 12-Step group. But A.A. says just the opposite:
"Dump your spouse and marry the A.A. group, because A.A. is The Only Way."

Other stories in the Big Book say:

I saw that it was my life that was unmanageable — not just my drinking.
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 471.

I did not know that I had no power over alcohol, that I, alone and unaided, could not stop; that I was on a downgrade, tearing along at full speed with all my brakes gone, and that the end would be a total smash-up, death or insanity.
The Big Book, 3rd Edition, page 471.

Other A.A.-booster literature tells stories like:

I said to my sponsor, "I really can't do this."
He said, "Good."
I said, "No, I mean, I really can't do this, all of the quitting and staying quit, and total abstinence. I just don't have it in me to succeed in a program like that."
He said, "Now you've getting it! That's what the program is all about. You must admit that you are powerless over alcohol."

That is surrender to an attitude of helplessness.

An A.A. true believer wrote in a newsgroup that alcoholics are pretty much mental midgets who freak out at the thought of quitting drinking:

I'd say that few alkies, especially while still drinking, can handle the concept of quitting, even if they've tried to do just that a hundred times. Stopping... or putting it on hold for today or right now... is something we can grasp. There is always tomorrow if I want it and so make that decision when I consider it again at that point.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.recovery.addiction.alcoholism/msg/52f7483a01340ba4

A Cocaine Anonymous book of stories tells us that:

Today I know that I am powerless over the outcome of everything and that my life is still unmanageable by me.
Hope, Faith, and Courage; Stories from the Fellowship of Cocaine Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous World Services, Inc., page 38.

That is more surrender to an attitude of helplessness.

Other A.A.-booster literature tells us that,

All members who actively work the program readily admit that they are powerless over alcohol.
Alcoholic Thinking: Language, Culture, and Belief in Alcoholics Anonymous, Danny M. Wilcox, page 88.

Why shouldn't I be able to handle this crisis? After all, I had willpower.
      Some time later Dr. Anderson was to make me think about the latter. "If alcoholism is a disease," he observed, "and I believe it is, what does willpower have to do with it? A cardiac victim can't say, 'I will not have another heart attack,' and will it so; the cancer patient can't say, 'I have willpower and I will rid myself of it, I won't let it get worse.' There is something about alcoholism that is organic — physical and psychological in the the mind — and willpower doesn't matter. When the alcoholic, after much suffering, vows he'll never take another drink, he really means it at the time. When he winds up drunk a month later, he wonders what happened; he doesn't realize that willpower has nothing to do with it."
Where Did Everybody Go?, Paul Molloy, page 88.

Now that is a twisty game of logic, isn't it? And very bad logic too. Regardless of whether alcoholism is a "disease", alcoholism is mainly determined by whether you use your hand to lift an alcoholic beverage to your mouth and drink it. So of course you have control over it. Drinking beer is not like having a heart attack.

Notice how the alleged 'doctor' said, "If alcoholism is a disease..."
But since alcoholism is not a disease like having a heart attack, will power has everything to do with quitting and staying quit.
(That is a good example of the propaganda trick of Sly Suggestions. First, the 'doctor' suggested that alcoholism might be a disease — "If alcoholism is a disease..." — and then he started dispensing critical life-or-death medical advice based on the unquestioned belief that alcoholism really was a disease over which the patient had no control.)

Obviously, alcoholism is not a disease like cancer or cardiac disease. Alcoholism is not a disease at all. It is habitual, compulsive behavior.