Spark 2 of 8: AGENCY VS. POWERLESSNESS

Core tension: Recovery culture's "powerlessness" doctrine versus the cognitive capacity to engage with one's own patterns. The paradox is that admitting powerlessness is supposed to grant power, but actually forecloses investigation.

IN MY WORDS

"The first step asks you to admit powerlessness, but powerlessness over what? It starts with alcohol, then becomes powerlessness over your thinking, your patterns, your character defects. The powerlessness metastasizes."

"I'm not powerless over alcohol. I just don't drink it. That's agency. Deciding not to do something isn't the same as being incapable of stopping."

"The question isn't whether I can moderate. The question is whether I'm allowed to think about whether I can moderate. The program forecloses the question itself."

THE EVIDENCE

The distinction between "I can't drink successfully" (observation) versus "I'm powerless over alcohol" (ontological claim).

Meditation practice reveals a significant capacity for observing patterns and promoting behavioral change.

Therapy work demonstrates that you can explore childhood patterns without adhering to a disease model.

WHY THIS MATTERS

This names the specific trap within recovery culture and establishes stakes—this isn't academic, it's about your actual capacity to think.

Recovery gave you sobriety but demanded you surrender the capacity to understand how you achieved it.

THE BOTTLE IS THE GENIE

Let's start with what may or may not be self-evident: Alcohol is an inert liquid.

It sits on the shelf. It doesn't call to you. It doesn't have agency. It doesn't "want" anything. It's ethanol, water, and various other compounds in a glass container.

You can be in a room with alcohol, and nothing happens. The bottle likely doesn't leap off the shelf. The liquid doesn't force itself down your throat.

The bottle has no power over you because the bottle has no power at all.

And yet.

Step One: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol."

Not powerless over our relationship to alcohol. Not powerless over our compulsive drinking patterns. Not powerless over the neurological response our brains have to ethanol.

Powerless over alcohol itself.

The program animates the bottle. Gives it agency. Makes it the protagonist.

CUNNING, BAFFLING, & POWERFUL NEMESIS

Fighting alcohol as a foreign fighting force is the most American of behavioral health solutions.

"The disease is out there doing pushups, waiting for me."

"Alcohol is cunning, baffling, powerful."

"The first drink gets you drunk—the bottle you drank from last week."

"My disease wants me dead."

The liquid becomes an active agent. A malevolent force. An enemy with intentions.

This isn't metaphor—or rather, it starts as metaphor and becomes literal belief. The bottle acquires personhood. The disease becomes a demon.

And if the bottle is powerful, if the disease is cunning, if alcohol itself has agency—then of course you're powerless against it. What chance does a weak Muggle human have against such a solid opponent?

The animism justifies the powerlessness.

GO GO AGENCY GADGET

Here's what actually happened when you drank:

You picked up the bottle. You opened it. You poured the liquid. You brought the glass to your mouth. You swallowed.

Every single action was yours. The bottle did nothing. The alcohol did nothing.

As my mentor Zig Ziglar says,” For 24 years of my adult life, by choice, I weighed well over 200 pounds. I say 'by choice' because I have never 'accidentally' eaten anything, so when I choose to eat too much, I have chosen to weigh too much.”

But to comply with recovery culture, you reframe like this: The alcohol had an effective (dark?) magic power over you. You were powerless. Your actions weren't really yours—they were the disease acting through you (see also: dark arts, dark magic, dark side, etc).

Your agency gets transferred to the bottle.

And once you've given your agency to an inanimate object, once you've declared yourself powerless over ethanol in a glass container, what else are you powerless over?

Your thinking. Your patterns. Your character. Your recovery itself.

The powerlessness over the bottle becomes powerlessness over yourself.

THE LOBSTER PICKS THE PATTERN

What I actually observed when I looked at my drinking:

I drank when anxious. The alcohol reduced anxiety temporarily. The anxiety returned worse. I drank more. The pattern escalated.

I drank when I wanted to avoid difficult conversations. When I felt resource scarcity. When I was processing childhood patterns. When I wanted to numb rather than feel.

These are my patterns. My responses. My behaviors.

The alcohol didn't create them. It participated in them. It was the substance I used to execute patterns that existed independent of the bottle.

Understanding this matters because: If the pattern is mine, I can investigate it. If the power is the bottle's, I'm helpless.

SELF-EFFICACY EROSION

We start with: "I'm powerless over alcohol" (an inert liquid).

Progress to: "I can't trust my thinking" (my cognitive capacity is compromised).

End at: "I need external power to remove my defects" (I can't change myself).

Each step transfers more of your agency elsewhere.

First to the bottle. Then to the disease. Then to the higher power. Then to the program. Then to your sponsor. Then to the fellowship.

By the time you're working a "good program," you've distributed your agency so thoroughly across external objects and entities that you've forgotten you had any.

This can feel like it is presented as service through humility. But it's actually good old-fashioned learned helplessness.

BRAINY SLEIGHTS OF HAND

There are pervasive supporting materials that point to neuroscience: "See? Brain scans prove alcoholism is a disease. You have no control."

But neuroscience shows something different: Repeated behavior creates neural pathways. The more you execute a pattern, the more automatic it becomes.

This is true for drinking. It's also true for meditation, exercise, reading, practicing an instrument—any repeated behavior.

Neural patterns are real. They create momentum. Breaking established patterns is hard.

But "hard to change" is not the same as "impossible to change." And "automatic response" is not the same as "powerless over an inert liquid."

The program uses neuroscience to justify animism, then uses animism to justify powerlessness.

MY ROCKY ROAD OF LOBSTER LOVE

November 2021: I admitted myself to detox.

This was agency. I had a seizure when I was 27. I knew the medical risks of withdrawal. I'd convinced myself that my risk for delirium tremens justified seeking medical supervision.

I assessed the danger, evaluated my options, and chose the safest path.

That's not powerlessness. That's risk assessment followed by action.

The detox staff introduced me to the program. The rooms offered structure, community, a way forward. I needed all of it. I used all of it.

But what I didn't need: a hot, fresh, delicious belief that the bottle had power over me.

I needed to stop executing a dangerous behavioral pattern. I needed medical supervision during withdrawal. I needed social support for maintaining the decision not to drink.

None of that requires animating the bottle. None of that requires declaring myself powerless over an inert liquid.

THE MEDICAL VS. THE METAPHYSICAL

Medical fact: Chronic alcohol use changes brain chemistry. Withdrawal can be dangerous. Seizures are real. Delirium tremens can be fatal.

These are physiological realities. They require medical attention.

But physiology is not metaphysics.

My body had adapted to regular alcohol intake. Stopping suddenly was medically risky. That's biochemistry.

The program turned biochemistry into ontology: "You're powerless. You have a disease. You'll never be normal. You need lifelong program participation."

Medical intervention became a religious conversion.

I needed detox. I got detox plus a worldview that eroded self-efficacy by transferring my agency to inanimate objects and abstract entities.

MEDITATION EVIDENCE

Daily sitting practice. Observing patterns as they arise.

A thought appears: "I want a drink."

My solid program would say: "That's your disease talking. You're powerless over it. Call your sponsor."

What actually happens in meditation:

The thought arises. I notice it. I observe its texture, its quality, and where it comes from. I watch it. It changes. It dissolves. I didn't fight it. I didn't surrender to it. I didn't give it power.

I observed a pattern in my own mind, and it had no power over me because thoughts don't have power—they're just thoughts.

The craving isn't the disease speaking. It's not alcohol calling to me. It's a habituated neural pattern firing. I can observe it. Investigate it. Choose not to act on it.

That's the opposite of powerlessness.

THERAPEUTIC EVIDENCE

IFS work identifies the parts that used drinking as a coping mechanism.

The anxious part that needed relief. The part that wanted to numb difficult feelings. The part that sought escape from performance pressure.

These parts aren't "the disease." They're protective mechanisms that developed in childhood. They used alcohol as a tool because alcohol was available and effective in the short term.

The parts have agency. Alcohol doesn't.

In therapy, I can dialogue with these parts. Understand what they're trying to protect. Develop alternative strategies. This is possible because the agency is mine.

If I'm powerless—if the bottle has the power—there's nothing to investigate. I just need to stay away from the malevolent liquid.

But that's not what's happening. The patterns are mine. The behaviors are mine. The agency is mine.

The bottle never had power. My recovery seemed to hope it could give it credit for my own former constellation of chemically imbalanced chaos.

THE FORBIDDEN QUESTION

"Could I moderate?"

The program treats this academic question as the disease talking. Real alcoholics know they can't moderate. Wondering means you're in denial. You need more Kool-Aid. Stat.

But here's what the question actually is: Can I execute this behavioral pattern differently?

Not: "Is the bottle less powerful than I thought?"

But: "Do I have more behavioral flexibility than the program claims?"

The question itself is legitimate. It's about my capacity, my patterns, my agency.

This inquiry will incite friction into your “work” as it forbids the question because investigating your own agency threatens the powerlessness doctrine. 

TRANS REALITY

My program told me repeatedly: Transfer your (wicked?) will to a higher power. Let God remove your defects. Surrender to the process.

What actually happens: You transfer your agency to the program and “process” itself.

The bottle was never powerful. The disease is a metaphor. What's powerful is the framework that convinces you to give up the investigation of your own patterns.

You become powerless over the program by first becoming "powerless" over ethanol.

The animism of the bottle is the gateway to the erosion of all self-efficacy. 

INTEREST IS IN INTERVENTION

In detox, in early sobriety, in crisis—the powerlessness framework helped me enormously.

I was scared. My body was dependent. My patterns were out of control. I needed to stop immediately and completely.

"You're powerless, just don't drink, go to meetings" was exactly the right instruction for that moment and a few years afterwards.

Crisis intervention is good medicine.

The problem comes later. When you're stable. When the acute danger has passed. When your thinking has cleared.

At that point, I believe continuing to insist that you're powerless over an inert liquid doesn't protect you. It prevents you from understanding your own recovery.

The Jewish Lobster’s crisis intervention became a prescribed and permanent identity.

And that's where the trap closes. Because if you question it—if you say "I think I have agency here"—you will receive the party line prescribed programmatic response of being in denial, your disease is talking, and you're definitely headed for relapse.

REPLACING ANIMISM

Not the illusion of control. Not "I can drink normally if I just try harder."

But accurate assessment: The bottle has no power. My patterns are mine. My behaviors are mine. My agency is mine.

I'm not powerless over alcohol. I'm choosing not to drink it.

The sobriety is exactly as real. But instead of being maintained by submission to a powerful enemy, it's maintained by understanding my own patterns and making informed choices. One must admit that it certainly does sound way, WAY cooler to “fight the good fight” and find the crucible, conquer demons, and such. 

EXIT CAVE LEFT

In my crisis, the animism helped. "The disease is powerful, you're powerless" permitted me to stop fighting to keep struggling, to accept help honestly, and to commit to and follow structure.

But I'm not in crisis anymore. My thinking is clear enough to excavate my past with exponentially greater precision. My patterns are observable. The medical danger has passed. There is a deep cave of personal archaeology perfectly primed for critically effective interpretation but that cannot compete with the conciseness of a flight or two of stairs. 

Continuing to credit the bottle with power I never had to lose doesn't protect my sobriety. It prevents me from understanding how I actually maintain it.

The bottle never left the cave, that's actually called interia. I left through agency of observable mindfulness.

The Hanukkah light: In crisis, you work with the framework that gets you stable. But you don't stay in that framework forever, giving credit to inanimate objects, afraid to recognize your own agency.

Three years sober. The bottle is still just a bottle. The seizure risk was real. My decision to seek medical help was agency. My continued sobriety is choice.

Time to reclaim the agency I gave away.

NEXT: COGNITIVE ENGAGEMENT

If you have agency—if the patterns are yours and the bottle is inert—what do you do with that? How do you investigate a pattern without the program's moral overlay? What does active engagement look like?

Part 3 explores the alternative practice: using your thinking capacity as a legitimate tool rather than treating it as the problem.

The Jewish Lobster Core Curriculum is an 8-part series examining recovery culture through systematic inquiry. It's for people who got sober but found the provided framework intellectually untenable. Not therapy. Not a program. Not steps. Just tools for thinking.