I used to be of the view that AA increased my range of choices, that it gave me back the capacity to choose. I’ve since changed my mind.
Stopping drinking was a necessity for years, but not one I could follow through on. Then I found myself in AA, by grace not judgement, and I ‘tried’ to return to drinking but found the way barred. Then, working the programme was the only viable option. No choice in any regard.
Once I was working the programme, there were lots of ‘musts’, and ‘had tos’, which are polite ‘musts’.
Today, I’m not choosing to stay sober: I could opt for drinking only if I were insane.
As I am sober, I can, I suppose, genuinely choose between not working the programme and working the programme, but in a condition of being awake, the choice is a no-brainer.
“I woke up. This had to be stopped. I saw I could not take so much as one drink.”
“Certainly I was interested. I had to be, for I was hopeless.”
“I simply had to believe in a Spirit of the Universe, who knew neither time nor limitation.”
“Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness.”
“We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics.”
“… and then asked me if I thought myself alcoholic and if I were really licked this time. I had to concede both propositions.”
“But after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life—or else.”
“We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves.”
“… even casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to be abandoned.”
“We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn’t apply to our human problems this same readiness to change our point of view.”
“… we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.”
“When we became alcoholics, … we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing.”
“Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there.”
“We had to have God’s help.”
“… we had to quit playing God.”
“Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.”
“If we were to live, we had to be free of anger.”
“He saw that he had to place the outcome in God’s hands or he would soon start drinking again …”
“We had to learn these things the hard way.”
“We all had to place recovery above everything, for without recovery we would have lost both home and business.”
“So, you see, there were three alcoholics in that town, who now felt they had to give to others what they had found, or be sunk.”