Very rarely, one has the feeling of drinking against one's will. Most of the time, the action of having the first drink or subsequent drink feels like it is an action in accord with the will. The formulation of the commands pour the wine into a glass and drink from the glass are axiomatically connected with will. The will is the faculty of discerning one from an array of courses of action, devising an intention, visualising the course of action into the future, and issuing the body with commands to implement the visualised course of action.
Why is alcoholism so often described as drinking against one's will? This conjures the idea of wanting not to lift the glass to the lips but the muscles of the arm lifting the glass to the lips anyway, with one's counter-commands to the muscles appearing impotent. This is manifestly not the experience of most alcoholics most of the time. There can occasionally be such experiences, but they are vanishingly rare and many alcoholics never report them at all.
There are two ways in which this statement, that one is drinking against one's will, can be said to be true, however.
Firstly, the notion of will presumes a plurality of options. I cannot will the existence of a visible vein in my left hand, because I cannot, by willing otherwise, induce the non-existence of the vein. I cannot will to swallow a bowling ball or throw a venial sin in the air, because the bowling ball is larger than my gullet and venial sins have no physical form. I cannot will to disappear and reappear in Bangkok. I might wish it, but wishing is not willing. There can be the awareness in an alcoholic that, whilst the desire to drink, the formulation of the action, and the taking of the action are subjectively the same as the desire to buy a custard tart from Tesco's, the formulation of the action, and the actual action of buying the tart, the appearance of will is actually a mirage since there is really no other valid option available. I recall clearly realising that, even if I were to will being sober or drinking moderately (which I did not), I would not be able to carry through such a will into action. I could not visualise it in practice. It was like visualising a triangle without stipulating any of the angles or visualising a tree without stipulating form or colour. What appeared to be the exercise of will was really the co-option of the mind and body by a force originating in an inaccessible part of one or both that would compel me to drink.
There is another way in which this notion of drinking against one's will was operative. The will, in a healthy person, is the formulation of actions and activities that will further the individual's interests. Where the actions and activities do no such thing, but present themselves as doing precisely that, and only intermittently so (e.g. the morning after, it is a rare alcoholic who would assert that he is better off with a hangover than without one, with remorse rather than satisfaction), the will, as it is perceived subjectively, must be understood to be something masquerading as will but really of a different nature.
What is that nature? Impulse. The impulse of the part of the midbrain that has learned that certain actions (drinking) cause the release and reception of certain neurotransmitters and, on the basis of the element of programming that automatically equates such phenomena with what is good for the person, issues the command to the command and control centre to comply with the impulse, either neutralising or overriding mental processes that might conclude that the equation of such phenomena with what is good for the person is incorrect or simply magically 'reasoning' on spurious grounds that such an equation is apt. What appears to be the formulation of the will is really the automated following through of an impulse clothed in the garb of free will. I was thus invariably drinking against my will, which conclusion I draw by looking at the reality of what drink did to me rather than at my subjective impression at the time of what was going on.