Are There Any?
Alcoholic Christians that is?
Aren’t all Alcoholics just Drunks?
Aren’t all Drunks…
DOOMED?
As in:
Go to Hell!
Directly to Hell!
Do Not Pass Go!
Do Not Collect $200.00!
Here’s your Gasoline underdrawers!
Is the phrase Alcoholic Christians an Oxymoron? Something that just can’t exist?
I grew up with the constant admonition that Drinking was a serious, serious sin.Getting Drunk!?Unimaginablysinful! Basically our tradition was:Don’t Drink, Don’t Smoke, Don’t Cuss, Don’t Chew, Don’t Associate with those that do…. and….Hang on for the Rapture!and oh yeah,No Movie’s. Not even Billy Graham movies, if shown in a regular theater!
Perhaps your Christian up bringing was as strict as mine. Maybe not, perhaps your Church was very liberal, it didn’t make any difference did it? Once drink got its hold, any relationship we had with God just faded away into an Alcoholic fog.
Alcoholic Christians are a baffling and painful bunch to deal with. They profess to be Christian, and in many ways perhaps, live accordingly. Yet still The Christian Alcoholic may drink and if at all like me, if they drink, they will inevitably get drunk. Why is this?
One thing that needs to be accepted by The Church is that Alcoholic Christians (like all Alcoholics) respond to Alcohol differently than normal people. A normal person may enjoy the feeling of relaxation Alcohol provides, they may even enjoy getting a bit tipsy on occasion. They do not want a great deal of the feeling though. What they are looking for, is a somewhat pleasant feeling to be enjoyed on occasion. Most Churches even tee totaling ones wouldn’t consider such a person Alcoholic. They are right. Alcoholics don’t drink that way.
What about those aggravating Christian Alcoholics though? They either get saved and discover they cannot quit Drinking or evenmoderatetheir drinking or as is often the case, they have already been born again at an early age but somewhere along the line began to drink.
In my heart IknewI was a Christian. I alsoknewI was Alcoholic. Yet my understanding was,there could be no Alcoholic Christian. I tried so hard to be a good enough Christian that my Alcoholism would go away. It never did.
For reasons I do not entirely understand God gives some people instantaneous miraculous deliverance from Alcohol and they never have trouble with it again. Others do not have this experience. We receive a daily reprieve. We must throw ourselves on the mercy of God Daily. Often many, manytimesdaily. We are sustained through Gods grace moment by moment. We are able to stay sober not through instantaneous, miraculous deliverance.
Rather, we are given a miraculous ability to rely on Gods grace moment by moment.
We are no better than those with whom God has dealt differently. We are, if we continue to walk in grace, most certainly no worse off.
