Our intellectual-emotional need for the effect can circumstantially grow over time, and then there is also the matter of our becoming less able to physically tolerate the substance...and that is what is meant when A.A. shares experience with there being no such thing as making a normal drinking out of an alcoholic and/or over time we get worse -- more loss of control -- never better.

Same here. Will power is/was effective only for as long as the intellect and emotions are/were in agreement about staying sober...and then Mr./Ms. Feelings typically wins out while hollering from the back of the bus...and that is why "Don't drink, one-day-at-a-time" almost never works for the real alcoholic.