"control" in the Big Book

Nevertheless, I still thought I could control the situation, and there were periods of sobriety which renewed my wife’s hope.

He may start off as a moderate drinker; he may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink.

Here is the fellow who has been puzzling you, especially in his lack of control.

control.

Yet he had no control whatever over alcohol.

The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking.

We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control.

All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals—usually brief—were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the rightabout-face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to him.

Once he started, he had no control whatever.

If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic.

We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn’t control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn’t make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn’t seem to be of real help to other people— was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight?

If he sticks to the idea that he can still control his drinking, tell him that possibly he can—if he is not too alcoholic.

Two: Your husband is showing lack of control, for he is unable to stay on the water wagon even when he wants to.

Often you must carry the burden of avoiding them or keeping them under control.

Whenever you want to, you control your drinking.

There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it.

Some time later, and just as he thought he was getting control of his liquor situation, he went on a roaring bender.