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Coping with Life 22 – Drunkenness and Drug Addiction
Coping with Life 22 – Drunkenness and Drug Addiction
Mike Willis
“For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and BE SOBER” (1 Thess. 5:5-6).
“And DO NOT GET DRUNK WITH WINE, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18).
Scripture warns those who are willing listen that intoxicating beverages and potions will destroy one’s happiness and sometimes take their life (Prov. 23:29-35). In the New Testament, the word “sorcery” translates the Greek word pharmakeia, which is derived from a verb that means “to make potions, practice magic.” Like some Native American religious cultures sometimes use peyote, a hallucinogenic drug, so also did ancient Near Eastern cultures. The Scriptures describe the practice as a “work of the flesh” (Gal. 5:20; Rev. 18:23).
Rather than being under the influence of intoxicating beverages or pills, the Christian is commanded to “be sober.” The Greek word nēphō meant “be free from every form of mental and spiritual ‘drunkenness’” (BDAG, 672). LSJ defines it as “to be sober, drink no wine” (1175).
It is sad to hear the stories of young people who have experimented with alcohol and drugs. Liking the euphoria they produce, the individual returns again and again to get more. But like all addictions, it takes more and more of the same product to reproduce the same high. Soon the person has lost all control and becomes an addict. At that point he would sell everything or everyone under his control to get the next high. I have spoken with adults who stole from their parents, grandparents, and strangers to buy their next bottle or pills. Their marriages fall apart; their children are taken from their custody; they lose their jobs and their friends, all of whom have been imposed upon for just “one more fix.”
What does Scripture say that enables one to cope with these problems? “Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who tarry long over wine; those who go to try mixed wine. DO NOT LOOK AT WINE WHEN IT IS RED, WHEN IT SPARKLES IN THE CUP AND GOES DOWN SMOOTHLY. In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things. You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast. ‘They struck me,’ you will say, ‘but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake? I must have another drink’” (Prov. 23:29-35).
The person who never tastes of alcoholic beverages and who never takes pills the doctor has not prescribed will avoid all of the struggles in life associated with addiction to intoxicating substances.
