July/August 2003
My Story - Christianity and Alcohol
by Barbara Curtis
"Alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful."
Any debate on Christians and alcohol needs this warning thrown into the mix. It's the mantra that bathes every newcomer to Alcoholics Anonymous and the world of recovery.
I first heard it on March 17, 1980, after stumbling into my first AA meeting. Those half dozen words were a revelation, explaining exactly why I always seemed to be outwitted by wine -- outwitted as in drinking in spite of frequent oaths not to, outwitted as in drinking more than I intended, outwitted as in blacking out so I didn't know where I'd parked my car, outwitted as in always having wine in the house, even when I'd forgotten milk for the kids.
Surprisingly, no one in AA hated me for the awful person I'd become. Indeed, the warmth, understanding, and acceptance I found there was unlike anything I'd ever felt before -- enough to keep me coming to meetings where I learned how to stay sober one day at a time.
The First Three Steps
The first step was admitting that I was powerless over alcohol -- boy, was I! -- and that my life hadbecome unmanageable -- boy, had it! By the time I made it to AA, I was sinking fast and hard, so this step was as elemental as grabbing a life preserver. Some alcoholics find it harder to admit their hopelessness -- and they bounce in and out of AA many times before they see the truth about their relationship with booze.
Self-honesty is the crucial first step of AA's powerful and life-changing 12 Steps. Without getting to that humble and broken place where lying becomes impossible, a problem drinker can't be helped at all.
The second and third steps challenge the alcoholic to embrace the only solution to her problem:
Come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.
Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him.
AA -- A Way to The Way
These first three steps are the cornerstone of recovery. For many like me, AA served as our first introduction to God, albeit a fill-in-the-blanks kind of deity. Founded in 1939 with strong roots in Christianity, AA's official program remains anchored on a purposely vague Higher Power, the better to save as many lives as possible. For, the theory goes, an alcoholic will drink until he dies.
And who's to say this is a bad idea? On March 21, 1987, after two years of "working the steps" and five more of looking for God in all the wrong places (New Age and Eastern religion), when I finally heard the good news of Jesus Christ, I was ready to receive him -- as was my husband Tripp, whom I had met and married in AA. Without AA, I might not have made it to that point.
In the meantime, no Christian had ever reached out a hand to help me.
For people like me, who grew up unchurched, AA can be a bridge, or as an AA friend who became a Christian and stayed active in the program put it: "A way to the Way."
On the other hand, for people who grew up in the church and later have to come to grips with alcoholism, AA opens the possibility of being embraced by people who really, truly understand -- who have no glib answers and would never presume to judge.
The lack of judgmentalism -- which provides such safety and security -- comes from a questionable premise. While Christians might call alcoholism a sin, AA would say it is a disease -- that some people are genetically disposed to become alcoholics.
Perhaps there is truth in both.
One thing I know for sure: There are many things I learned in AA that make me a better Christian. In fact, I've often thought it would be a blessing if all new Christians went through the 12 Steps as part of their discipleship. It was through those steps that I learned how to search my conscience, confess my sin, make amends and to forgive others.
By contrast, I've met some Christians who operate as though forgiveness in Christ leaves them without an obligation to those they've harmed along the way. I've also met those who remain bitter or confused by hurts others caused them, rather than being able to see how God has used even the bad for good in their lives.
In AA, recovering alcoholics learn from the get-go that dealing with the wreckage of the past is not just a good choice, but essential to our survival.
Freedom in Christ
As a new believer, already clean and sober for seven years, for a few years I assumed that being a Christian meant you were not
supposed to drink. You can imagine my confusion when a visit to my Bible study leader's home brought me face-to-face with a well-stocked and very-out-in-the-open bar!
I guess it was the out-in-the-open part that spoke loudest to me, because the conclusion I drew was not that this respected woman and her husband were sinners because there was booze in their home, but that it must be okay for Christians to drink as long as they didn't have a problem with it. And if it wasn't something hidden, if it was something they felt comfortable with, it must not be a problem.
Hand-in-hand with this realization was the attitude adjustment I was making after being delivered from 18 months in an extremely legalistic church. There, all behavior was codified as to what Christians could do and what we could not do. As one survivor later put it, "We weren't allowed to have sex because it might lead to dancing." Truly, with no options available to us, we were free to leave our brains at the door, because no thinking -- nor any individual inspiration from the Holy Spirit -- would ever be necessary.
| It worried me that a couple times I decided to stop drinking and then didn't see it through. It worried me that alcohol occupied my thoughts at all. |
Now, seeking through the Bible, I began to see that while there were specific biblical warnings about drunkenness, there were at least as many references to wine as something beneficial. The responsibility seemed to lie with each of us to make sure we remained good and faithful stewards. This actually demanded more of us than blindly following a list of dos and don'ts.
I was discovering this thing called freedom in Christ.
Still, it was a few years more before I realized that I could exercise that freedom myself. For now, I didn't have to define myself as a recovered alcoholic, but a new creation in Christ. The spiritual emptiness which drove me to drink, a few haunting episodes from my past which led me to seek oblivion in alcohol, were no longer part of who I was.
A Return to Slavery?
Tripp and I began to enjoy a glass of wine now and then when we were out to dinner. Eventually, we began allowing a little wine now and then with our meals at home. Tripp enjoyed sipping a beer on the nights he barbecued. We might enjoy a little cognac at the end of a way-too-busy day after tucking in the 10 children we still have at home.
And yet, while Tripp held a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, I kept tending more and more toward the take-it side. It was nowhere, nowhere near my pre-AA drinking levels, and yet
It worried me that I was looking forward to drinking a little something every night. It worried me that a couple times I decided to stop drinking and then didn't see it through. It worried me that alcohol occupied my thoughts at all.
And so, once again I exercised my freedom in Christ -- this time to give up drinking, and to give it up before I found out how much I could get away with before hitting bottom.
Tripp stopped drinking too, although for a different reason. For, while he didn't seem to have the same problematic relationship with alcohol, the predisposition to addiction, he gave it up in accordance with 1 Corinthians 8:9-12:
"Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.... When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ."
Is Alcohol A Sin?
Having gone through this experience, I am grateful for the fearless self-honesty I acquired in AA. For the worst problem for an alcoholic is self-deception. The compulsion to drink causes the alcoholic to lie to himself about how out-of-balance his life is becoming.
As alcohol keeps gaining in importance, everything else -- family, friends, church, even God -- loses importance.
Yes, even for believers -- at least those like me, who have a predisposition to alcoholism -- alcohol can be "cunning, baffling, and powerful." Or it can certainly become a powerful weapon in the hands of our very cunning enemy.
Does that mean I've changed my mind about Christians and drinking? Not at all.
Alcohol in itself is not evil, though abusing it causes evil.
The bottom line is that we are free in Christ -- free to enjoy alcohol if it is not a problem for us or a stumbling block for others -- and free to refuse it if we wish. Neither position should be a litmus test for the authenticity of our faith or the quality of our relationship with God.
But our freedom in Christ carries with it the responsibility of being scrupulously honest with ourselves, harmless to others, fearless in confession and faithful to obey what God asks of us.
Then, and only then, can we be truly free in Christ.
Barbara Curtis, her husband Tripp and their family live in Virginia.