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Alcoholic Beverages
Wine, beer, and other liquor have been associated in the Western world with memorable events, happy occasions, holidays, and important business transactions. There is a seemingly clean and beautiful face to alcoholic beverages. They not only have become socially acceptable but also a “necessity” in certain circumstances. Unfortunately, there’s another side to alcohol that those who make their living selling it don’t want their potential customers to see.
Read Proverbs 23:29–35. What do these verses say about the adverse effects of alcohol? From your own experiences, what have you seen of the devastating effects from the use of this poison?
The image of beautiful wine soon biting like a snake and poisoning like a viper is powerful. Alcohol’s chemical makeup is treated by the human body not as food but as a toxic substance. It is absorbed into the stomach and transported by the bloodstream to the brain, lungs, kidneys, and heart in just a few minutes. The liver especially is taxed in order to process a substance that takes hours of hard work to break down. When the presence of alcohol is chronic and prolonged significantly, the organs will deteriorate, and the person suffers from one or more illnesses.
Unfortunately, the effects of alcohol transcend the drinker. Alcohol use comes with a terrible social cost. Half of all automobile and workplace accidents are alcohol-related. Many crimes are committed under the effect of alcohol. Public and private funds are depleted to provide health care to cure maladies caused directly by alcohol. And, closer to home, the spouse and children of the addict often are victims of verbal and physical abuse.
Alcohol, as well as any other psychoactive substance, will affect our ability to make the correct moral choices; under the influence, folk are likely to slip deeper and deeper into sin.
Those trapped in any kind of substance abuse need to realize their problem and their need of help from a power greater than themselves—and that includes God’s grace, the support of family or a caring church community, and the treatment prescribed by qualified professionals (if possible).
As Seventh-day Adventists, we take a very strong line on alcohol use. Without judging or condemning them, how can we help those among us who are struggling with this problem, which in the eyes of God might not be as bad as other problems that are deemed more socially acceptable?
| SUNDAY | March 6 |
Wine, beer, and other liquor have been associated in the Western world with memorable events, happy occasions, holidays, and important business transactions. There is a seemingly clean and beautiful face to alcoholic beverages. They not only have become socially acceptable but also a “necessity” in certain circumstances. Unfortunately, there’s another side to alcohol that those who make their living selling it don’t want their potential customers to see.
Read Proverbs 23:29–35. What do these verses say about the adverse effects of alcohol? From your own experiences, what have you seen of the devastating effects from the use of this poison?
The image of beautiful wine soon biting like a snake and poisoning like a viper is powerful. Alcohol’s chemical makeup is treated by the human body not as food but as a toxic substance. It is absorbed into the stomach and transported by the bloodstream to the brain, lungs, kidneys, and heart in just a few minutes. The liver especially is taxed in order to process a substance that takes hours of hard work to break down. When the presence of alcohol is chronic and prolonged significantly, the organs will deteriorate, and the person suffers from one or more illnesses.
Unfortunately, the effects of alcohol transcend the drinker. Alcohol use comes with a terrible social cost. Half of all automobile and workplace accidents are alcohol-related. Many crimes are committed under the effect of alcohol. Public and private funds are depleted to provide health care to cure maladies caused directly by alcohol. And, closer to home, the spouse and children of the addict often are victims of verbal and physical abuse.
Alcohol, as well as any other psychoactive substance, will affect our ability to make the correct moral choices; under the influence, folk are likely to slip deeper and deeper into sin.
Those trapped in any kind of substance abuse need to realize their problem and their need of help from a power greater than themselves—and that includes God’s grace, the support of family or a caring church community, and the treatment prescribed by qualified professionals (if possible).
As Seventh-day Adventists, we take a very strong line on alcohol use. Without judging or condemning them, how can we help those among us who are struggling with this problem, which in the eyes of God might not be as bad as other problems that are deemed more socially acceptable?
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