If people were powerless over things, they could not lift a stone or fell a tree.
If people were powerless over places, the world would look the same as it did ten thousand years ago.
If people were powerless over people, no crime could ever have been committed.
Apart from the fact that the statement that one is powerless over people, places, and things is obviously quite wrong, it represents most dangerously a denial of one's own responsibility.
Moreover, it then places the blame on others: If something is wrong, and it's not my fault, it's yours.
I can't control the course of someone's alcoholism as an act of the will, but everything I do affects the person positively or negatively, interacting with their reactions to produce the results.
This works both ways round.