Week 22 Sunday
Week 22 Sunday
The Escape Method
Romans 14:19-21
We have said that there are three possible attitudes toward reality. First, escape it. Second, rebel against it. Third, cooperate with it. The first two bring disaster; the third brings development. There is only one way to live: to cooperate with reality and get its resources behind you.
One of the commonest methods of trying to escape reality is through narcotics. In taking narcotics you build up an unreal world and live in it for the time being. If you are unhappy, you seem to be happy; if you are inhibited, you seem to be free; if you are inferior, you seem to be superior, at least for the duration of the effects of the narcotics. Someone asked a man in Manchester, England, why he drank liquor, and his reply was, “It’s the shortest way out of Manchester.” He had no courage, no nerve to face Manchester, so he sought to escape from it by way of a bottle. But the difficulty with the method was that in the morning Manchester was back again, and back again stronger than ever, since he had fewer resources to meet it. Each time he tried to escape it, he was less capable of meeting it, for each attempt at escape weakened his personality by the very attempt. The whole process was under “the law of diminishing returns”; he had to put more into it each time to get out the same result. The result was inevitable: decay.
The attempt to make drinking “smart” is an attempt at rationalization. It dresses up an escape mentality in the dress of social smartness, an attempt to make a personal weakness into a social strength. The attempt is to provide compensation. Elvin M. Jellinek says, “Inferiority feelings may be present in some degree in all drinker-types.”* Note that he does not say the “drunkard-types,” for the desire to escape from reality is present both in the drinker-types and the drunkard-types. It is just a matter of degree how far you have slid down the line of escapism. Dr. A. E. Carver says, “Alcohol, by producing euphoria, blunting the critical power and progressively relaxing inhibitions, permits a flight from reality.”* Drinking is the refuge of the weak; it is a crutch for lame ducks.
O strong Christ, you refused while upon the cross the deadening drug, and who matched your inner courage against outer circumstance, give me that same courage that I, too, may take no subterfuge, but face bravely everything with you. For I want no half answers that let me down. I want to live, and to live abundantly and courageously. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am a Christian—I lean on no staff that will break and pierce my hand and my heart.
*Jellinek quotation not located but he was a contributor to Research Council on Problems of Alcohol, Scientific Committee, Alcohol Addiction and Chronic Alcoholism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946) from which the Carver quotation is taken (p. 13).
Week 22 Monday
Inferiorities and Alcohol
1 Corinthians 8:12; 10:31-32
We saw yesterday that the taking of narcotics is the refuge of the weak. It is a sign of frustration or of inferiority feelings. Dr. Stracher says, “Alcohol is utilized as an escape from the responsibilities and burdens of mature emotional life and its decisions. It provides wish-fulfillment.”* It makes a person think, for the moment, that he or she is strong and brave, even if this is the same frustrated person who took to alcohol to escape. The story is told of a mouse that found a cask of wine dripping in the cellar. He took one taste and began to feel his muscles, took two tastes and, standing on his hind legs, faced the world and said, “Now let the cat come on!” Mice-men and mice-women, under the influence of alcohol, feel capable of meeting the cats of human existence.
Dr. J. H. Wall sums it up, “Alcohol offers an escape to the blissful state of infantile omnipotence.”** On a Sunday morning in a hotel lobby, a rather bunged-up individual, battered from the night before, stepped up to me and without preliminary words said, “I’m a big shot, too.” His inferiority compelled him to assert himself as “a big shot, too.” It was a “blissful state of infantile omnipotence.”
I overheard this remark, “One of those funny things happened, you know, one of those things that happens when a gang has four or five cocktails each.” Then followed a disgusting recital of beastliness. Inhibitions gone, moral barriers swept aside, lust without restraint. It is a fact that alcohol deadens the brain cells that preside over the moral faculties and awakens those that preside over the lower instincts, so that the stage is set for “one of those funny things” that happens after a few cocktails. Funny?
Fiorello H. La Guardia (1882–1947) said, “Don’t forget that 80 percent of the cases of the magistrates courts are alcoholics.”*** But what of those that don’t get to courts? What about the reaction in “hangovers,” in decreased efficiency, in wasted powers? “But I don’t get hangovers” is the reply. No, but if it takes ten drinks to get you drunk, then when you take one you are one-tenth drunk. You are on the way to the other nine tenths. And more, each drink weakens you and makes the other nine easier. You are a deteriorating personality.
O living Christ, give me power to rise out of this descending spiral of weakness leading to greater weakness. Give me grace that I be not shackled with any self-imposed habit. Help me to complete self-mastery. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “All things are lawful for me? . . . Yes, but I am not going to let anything master me” (1 Cor. 6:12 Moffatt).
*No source known.
**Alcohol Addiction and Chronic Alcoholism, 13.
***This may be from an article in Reader’s Digest, vol. 45 (1944).
Week 22 Tuesday
Some Wrong Notions about Alcohol
Galatians 5:19-21
You must clear out of your thinking certain illusions about alcohol:
(1) It is not a stimulant; it is a depressant. “In the early stages, there seems to be a stimulation, and many people still think of alcohol as a stimulant. This is incorrect. The apparent stimulation is interpreted by those who have studied it carefully as due to the loss of some control, to die blunting of the feeling of self-consciousness, and to the decrease in self-criticism and concern as to the opinion of others. In other words, certain of the highest and most important activities of the brain have been depressed.” This statement issued by the Department of Public Instruction of Michigan* is corroborated by Dr. Robert Fleming of Harvard, “Wherever the alcohol comes in contact with the tissues, it exerts its characteristic and single effect, which is that of a depressant: alcohol depresses, retards or stops, the functions of any protoplasm upon which it acts directly.”** Note, “It exerts its characteristic and single effect, which is that of a depressant.” Alcohol has one effect and only one effect: it depresses. The “lift” that one apparently gets out of it is the lifting of controls, of inhibitions, of restraints.
(2) Alcohol does not increase muscular strength. Dr. Howard W. Haggard says, “The results of such investigation showed that alcohol does not restore or increase muscular strength. Industry then adopted rules against drinking in factories. . . . The labor organizations joined against drinking.”
(3) Alcohol does not increase warmth. “When alcohol is used before or during exposure to cold, it may bring more blood to the surface, where the nerves for perceiving warmth lie, and make one feel warmer, but actually there is a greater loss of heat as a result.” A person under alcohol feels warmer for the moment, but is actually colder.
(4) Alcohol does not make you more capable—for anything. “In both Swedish and French armies, tests with expert marksmen showed that their scores were always lower after small amounts of alcohol. Many such experiments show that alcohol, even in small doses, interferes with the accurate coordination of the muscles of the body.”***
O God, I do not want to live my life amid illusions, making a present fool’s paradise into an ultimate hell. I want to be real, and I want to live really. Help me to break the chain of illusions that I have foolishly bound around myself. Help me. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am a follower of the Way. I have resources within. I do not need to try to take them from the end of a bottle.
*Published statement unavailable.
**No published source was found for this quotation. Robert Fleming was a psychiatrist in the Department of Hygiene at Harvard University and gave talks on alcoholism, according to issues of the Harvard Crimson from the 1950s.
***Howard W. Haggard, MD, director of Yale University’s Laboratory of Applied Physiology, founded The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs in 1940 as the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol. The direct quotations shown here could not be located.
Week 22 Wednesday
Take It or Leave It Alone?
Ephesians 5:15-18
Alcohol lowers the whole tone of the personality while seeming to heighten it. This apparent heightening is the result of a loss of control. For instance, says the Michigan Department of Public Instruction, “When the effect of alcohol on reaction tie, that is, the time that elapses between stimulation and response, has been measured, it has been found in every case that this time is lengthened. Such an action becomes very important in the case of the person driving an automobile. . . . Similarly, tests of learning and memory, committing poetry, learning to associate pairs of words, all reveal a decreased effectiveness after even small doses of alcohol. . . . After alcohol, the individual is less competent physically, less critical of himself, less alert in his attention, less responsive to emergencies that may arise, and may be quite unaware of any decrease in his capacity.”*
(5) Drinking to relieve symptoms sets up a vicious circle. Dr. Robert Fleming says, “It is a curious and essential fact that many symptoms which originally owed their existence to the chronic action of alcohol may be temporarily relieved or forgotten by taking more alcohol. A person drinks to assuage feelings of inferiority and remorse arising out of previous alcoholic excess, or to relieve indigestion or decreased appetite due to alcoholic gastritis, or a result of the social dislocation attendant upon loss of job or [spouse] because of drinking—then the person has been caught in an addictive vicious circle.”**
(6) The idea that you can take it or leave it alone may become a snare. Dr. Robert Fleming gives these two important generalizations, “First, moderate drinking is forever impossible for the alcoholic addict; the only therapeutic objective that has any chance of success is total abstinence; secondly, anybody [who] drinks enough over a long enough period of time will become addicted; it takes some people longer than others to attain addiction, but no human being can be regarded as immune.”
(7) Remember that every single addict has come out of the ranks of moderate drinkers. Every moderate drinker is a potential addict. Every drink sets the skids for the next—the toboggan slide has begun.
O Christ of the complete control and of the complete freedom, give me that same control, so that I may have that freedom. For subtle bondages are taking over the control of my life. I would be bound to nothing—nothing except you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am a servant of Christ; I will be the slave to nothing else.
*Published statement unavailable.
**No published source was found for this quotation. Robert Fleming was a psychiatrist in the Department of Hygiene at Harvard University and gave talks on alcoholism, according to issues of the Harvard Crimson from the 1950s.
Week 22 Thursday
Some Positive Steps Out of Alcoholism
Colossians 3:5-10
Now that we have cleared our minds of certain illusions about drink we may be ready to take the next positive steps.
We take the steps outlined by Dr. Peabody, who has probably exerted more influence than anyone else on the psychotherapy of alcohol addiction.* His reeducation program has nine steps, to which I have added comments: (1) A mental analysis and removal of doubts and fears created in the past. Go over your past with someone skilled and trusted and get up and out any buried doubts and fears that may be at the basis of your drinking. (2) Permanent removal of tension—which is only temporarily removed by alcohol—by formal relaxation and suggestion. Say to yourself, “This tension can be and is being removed by the power of Christ, to whom I am surrendering the tension.” (3) Influencing the unconscious mind by suggestion “so that it cooperates with the conscious to bring about a consistent, intelligent course of action.” Suggest to yourself as you drop off to sleep at night, “I shall be well, strong, and free. Deliverance is working.” (4) Control of thoughts and actions. When the thought of taking a drink presents itself, bat your eyes rapidly and pray the prayer, “O Christ, save me.” The batting of the eyes breaks up the thought, and in that moment you recover your equilibrium. (5) Hygiene. Keep your body clean by a daily bath as the symbol of a soul cleanness. Take exercise morning and evening. (6) Daily routine of a self-imposed schedule to keep occupied, to train will-power and efficiency, and to give the feeling of doing something about the problem. Draw up a list of the steps you should take in your particular situation. (7) Warning against unexpected pitfalls. If you fall, fall on your knees. Don’t give up. (8) Provision of some means of self-expression. Take on yourself a task for others that will show that you are not a worm but a worker, not a thing but a person. (9) Realization that the same force that drove to disintegration will, under conditions of sobriety, carry beyond the level of average attainment. You can be strong where you have been weakest.
O Christ, I am affirming release and victory, not in my poor strength, but in your strength and willingness. I can rely on you when I cannot rely on myself. I have faith in your faith in me. I will rise to your faith and live by it. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “When a man’s life pleases the Eternal, he gives him a sure footing; he may fall, but life never falls down” (Ps. 37:23 Moffatt).
*See Richard R. Peabody, The Common Sense of Drinking (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1930).
Week 22 Friday
A Tried Method of Release
1 Peter 1:3-7
Take the steps that Alcoholics Anonymous,* after long and fruitful testing of the ways of release, has outlined: (1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. (2) We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. (3) We made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. (4) We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. (5) We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. (6) We were entirely ready to have God remove all defects of character. (7) We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. (8) We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. (9) We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except where to do so would injure them or others. (10) We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. (11) We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry out that will. (12) Having had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles.
Captain Conger was an alcoholic, beaten, had no grip on his job, but he has been saved from even the desire for alcohol for eight years. During a period of great struggle, the Inner Voice said, “Look into that cupboard at those bottles.” As he looked at them, his tensions were let down, “The alcohol in those bottles had no more effect upon me than if it had been ink or glue. I was released.”**
Dr. Charles Mayo says, “You can get along with a wooden leg, but you can’t get along with a wooden head. . . . It is the brain that counts, but in order that your brain may be kept clear you must keep your body fit and well. This cannot be done if one drinks liquor.”*** Thomas A. Edison is widely quoted as saying, “I am a total abstainer from alcoholic liquors. I have a better use for my head.”
I do not think
That I should drink
For when I drink
I do not think.
O God, I’m committed, soul and body, for time and eternity—committed to freedom from every enslaving habit and desire. And now help me to reach out a helping hand to some struggler. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “I have soothed and stilled my soul . . . ; my soul is like a weaned child” (Ps. 131:2 Moffatt).
**Source unknown.
***As quoted in “It’s the Brain that Counts,” Appleton Review 1, no. 6 (February 21, 1930). http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=turn&entity=WI.aplReviewv01n06.p0010&id=WI.aplReviewv01n06&isize=text
Week 22 Saturday
A Growing Addiction
2 Timothy 1:6-7; 2:22
We must spend this day on the growing addiction to the cigarette habit. That it is an addiction no one can doubt. Look at a long line of people, in wartime Hammond, Indiana, queued up at ten o’clock in the morning, waiting to get a pack of cigarettes at three o’clock in the afternoon. Five hours of standing in line through the most important part of the day, including the lunch hour! Something has gripped them, enslaved them. They are not free people; they’re victims.
On an airplane coming across the Caribbean, I watched a woman with parched, yellow skin, incessantly puffing on a cigarette. The doctor inspecting the passengers pulled her out of the line for further inspection. Medical science is increasingly pulling cigarette addicts out of line and warning them of deterioration. Dr. Raymond Pearl, the medical statistician, says, “Between the ages of thirty and forty-five, the mortality rate is double among the heavy smokers (that is, ten or more cigarettes a day) over the nonsmokers.”* You cut your life expectancy in half between those ages. Dr. Bertha Van Hoosen, says, “The prospective mother who smokes can expect overstimulation of the nervous system, unnecessary rise in blood pressure, lessened desire for food, disturbed and decreased action of the lungs, injury to the kidney substance, and this culminates in the interference in the growth and development of the child.”**
Two letters, one from a World War I veteran, “I never smoked until I went into training. . . . Now I have to smoke all the time, even during the night. It is making me nervous, and I cannot concentrate on what I am doing. I am only about fifty percent efficient in business. I have tried in vain to stop smoking. Can you help me?” Another from a World War II veteran, “I have been ordered by the doctor to quit smoking, but to date have been unsuccessful. As it is ruining my health and nerves, I would like to quit for the sake of my wife and two children, as well as for the sake of my health.”
To smoke because it’s “smart” is a rationalization of a weakness. It is not smart to smoke; it is weak. The cigarette is a minus sign.
O Christ, who came to make us free, make me free. I surrender into your hands this habit. I cannot break it, but I am willing for you to break it. I rise up strong in your strength to throw off this foreign yoke. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Revere the Eternal and draw back from sin: that will mean health for your body and fresh life to your frame” (Prov. 3:7-8 Moffatt).
*No published source was found for this quotation.
**Direct quotation not located but see Bertha Van Hoosen, “Should Women Smoke” (1927) widely published in medical journals.