January 25 – The Broken Off Switch
“I can’t stop. It’s like a car crash — I can’t look away.” — Fight Club
Once we take a drink, something in us flips and we can’t flip it back. The Big Book describes it as the phenomenon of craving, an allergy to alcohol. Nowadays, we can just tell ourselves our off switch is broke. It doesn’t go from on to off — it goes from on to mor-on, and there ain't a damn thing any alcoholic can do to stop it once they have one in them.
After that first one, our bodies light up like a short circuit. Our nerve endings fire and scream “more!” and no amount of willpower stops it. We've tried. We tell ourselves, this time I’ll stop after two, but that’s just the mental obsession lying to us again — the same lie that keeps us testing a theory we have already proved wrong so many times.
We used to think we needed more willpower. Turns out we needed honesty. Weakness says try harder. Powerlessness says stop pretending.
How many times do I have to flip the same broken switch before I believe it’s not going to work?
