You need to turn off formatting if you want to force a return.  Try this:

Text text text text...

.FO OFF
1)Point number 1
2)Point number 2
.FO ON

More text text text text...

This <is> documented but note carefully that it (and all other formatting
commands) work only in templates that are not "linear" templates.  If you
look in the list of templates found in chapter 9, you will see that some
of the templates are listed like this:

- SUB_CLOSED (linear): this is the message that is sent to a subscriber

This means that the SUB_CLOSED template form is a linear template form
and does not accept (in fact ignores) any dot commands you put in it
to try to format the text.

Nathan