Teaching by living

I was at a party recently and when I went up to the bar and ordered a plain coke, the guy standing next to me smiled and bellowed out that I needed to put a couple of fingers of Jack Daniels in it “to add some bite and stiffen it up a little”. I just smiled and said, “I don’t drink”, and then quickly added, “I like it, but it doesn’t seem to like me too much”.

Unlike many fundamentalist friends of mine I don’t think drinking in moderation is a sin. The first miracle that Jesus performed was changing water to wine at a wedding party. My friends say it was grape juice, but after several decades of Bible study I’m not buying it. As far as I can tell there is nothing wrong with drinking in moderation. It’s when we drink to excess that problems develop.

Make no mistake about it drinking too much alcohol can cause untold grief and misery and I have seen and lived through my fair share of it. I have lost friends to alcohol related car crashes and suicide, seen marriages destroyed, careers ruined, fortunes lost, and bodies broken, (including mine), because of it.

But I can also honestly say that I have seen more people who seem to be capable of drinking in moderation without suffering those consequences. My wife is a prime example of someone who can enjoy a glass of wine or two with dinner and that’s it. Likewise she can drink a beer or two while grilling steaks or at a social gathering with no problem curtailing it there. Me, I could never seem to stop with a glass or two of wine or beer, instead I wanted to drink wine by the half gallon and beer by the case. I wanted to attain a certain level of drunkenness and could not stop until I attained it.

I have traveled from one end of this country to the other speaking at rehab facilities etc. and have spoken one-on-one with thousands of alcoholics and homeless people whose lives have been devastated by alcoholism and drug addiction. Interestingly I have yet to meet a single person whose goal when starting out in life was to become an alcoholic or a drug addict, or who ever thought it remotely might happen to them. It starts out innocently enough, but seems to take over somewhere along the way in some of us.

I don’t know if there is any accurate way to predict who will ultimately go on to become an alcoholic and who will be able to end up drinking moderately. I suppose those with young children should think about this the most. I read the other day that 82 per cent of kids whose parents drink end up drinking themselves. Some of those kid’s lives will be devastated by it. Now there’s a sobering thought.

If you don’t want to take that risk I suppose you should forego drinking for their sakes. There is an old adage that “you cannot teach what you do not live”. It seems to ring true as it applies to children following their parents down the path of drinking.

Proverbs 20:1
Wine is a mocker.
Strong drink is a brawler.
And whoever is led astray by it
is not wise.