ONCE A PICKLE, ALWAYS A PICKLE
Proverbs 23:29-35, John 2:1-11
Picture yourself out in the desert. It is brutally hot and dusty; a warm wind dogs your every step. As far as you can see, there is nothing but sand shimmering as the heat rises from it. You have used up the last of your water and have been plagued by a thirst that increases with every moment. There is nothing else to do so you keep walking hoping that one of the mirages you see might actually turn out to be a real oasis, that somewhere in this seemingly God-forsaken morass you might find some water.
Just then, you come over a small rise and see ahead of you a beautiful stream. Beside the stream is a table upon which sits a tall pitcher of ice-cold water, droplets of water running down its sides. Beside the table stands a rather indistinct person who reaches over and pours the water into a tall drinking glass. With your last bit of energy, you run toward the table and reach out to grab the glass with the clear idea of downing it as quickly as possible and then finishing off the rest of the pitcher. You finally reach the table, lunge for the glass and...just then...the person jumps between you and the water glass, holds up his hand and says in a stern voice: "No, I'm sorry, you can't have any water!"
Astonished, you say: "But I haven't had any water for two days, every cell in my body is screaming for water, I have to have it, I have to have it now!" Unmoved, the person says again that you can't have the water although you can stay and stare at the pitcher if you wish.
If you've every wondered what it feels like to be an alcoholic or drug addict; what it's like to be someone who is physically, emotionally and spiritually dependent on a mood changing drug, this little story may give you some idea. If you think that willpower is the answer; that alcoholics and addicts simply lack the moral fortitude to stop abusing the chemicals that are killing them, consider what your reactions would be were you told to use willpower in the circumstances I've just presented. Could you do it; with every cell in your body screaming for water, a substance you can't live without, could you summon up the strength to say " well, okay, I need the water in the worst way, and I feel like I'm dying, but I'll just stand here and look at it...?"
Dependence on alcohol and other mood-changing drugs is a disease of three parts. There is now unquestionable evidence that a large percentage of those who become addicted are biochemically different from "normal" people. They react differently to alcohol than their non-addict family and friends. People who drink alcohol do so purely and simply because it makes them feel good. In small amounts, alcohol produces, for many people, pleasurable sensations: relaxation, calmness, a decrease in anxiety in social situations. Again, for most folks who drink, it just "feels good." For the alcoholic, however, at least at the start, it feels "gooder than good." It effects their brains in a much more pronounced manner than that of moderate or social drinkers. Alcohol--or other mood changing drugs--flood the neural pathways in the brain with a surplus of "feel good" chemicals and produces a craving for "more of the same." It produces a sensation not very different from what you would feel if you were the person in the desert who lunged for the water glass and gulped it down, experiencing the ultimate pleasure of consuming water that only the thirsty can understand.
But there is more to addiction than a biologically determined "set up" for abuse. Alcohol does for the alcoholic what religion does for the non-addicted. It provides a sense of meaning and purpose, it seems to answer the questions that life presents to all of us: who am I? Why am I here? How can I face the things I fear? It seems to make the mundane extraordinarily exciting. It provides transcendence; it lifts the drinker out of himself and provides a glorious--albeit very temporary and illusory--sense that all is well with the world.
But, of course, alcohol and other drugs with this seductive power, eventually turn on the abuser. It takes more and more of the substance to produce the good feelings. This does not usually mean drinking around the clock or even every day. It does mean that the brain remembers the good feelings, the sense of relief, the transcendence, and thus motivates that alcoholic to find more and more situations in which there is some seemingly rational reason to drink, and to drink more. In the beginning, one or two beers may be enough to get the desired effect but eventually, it takes more and more beer (or wine or hard-liquor) to get the effect and, eventually, no amount is enough. Those in recovery have a saying: One drink is too many and a thousand is not enough.
With tolerance--the need for more and more to get the effect--comes a marked change in personality and judgment. Rationality and common sense go out the window. Those in the grip of addiction are quite literally not their real selves; they are chemically altered beings who behave in odd and, most often, off-putting ways. They may be obnoxiously grandiose or plagued by self-pity. They may become argumentative or mutely withdrawn. But, again, the person "under the influence" is not his or her real self; he or she is a chemically altered being. In religious terms, you could say that they have substituted "spirits" for the Spirit. Wanting what we all want--a sense of meaning and value and purpose--they have chased after a false god and have been drawn off the path that leads to real life.
Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus have anything directly to say about alcohol. It is clear that the wine he produced from water at the wedding in Cana had alcohol in it (there were no preservatives back then and Welchade hadn't been invented...). The same is true of the wine he gave his followers at the Last Supper. We presume that he, like all of those raised in the Hebrew traditions, viewed wine as a pleasurable gift from God that, when used in moderation, caused no harm. What we do know about Jesus is that he came to give us life, to show us the path to a fulfilled life wherein conscious contact with God was a freely offered gift and a means to become who we were created to be. What he offered was tantalizing similar to what alcoholics think they are getting from alcohol with this difference: Jesus came to give us life whereas alcohol for the alcoholic brings death.
With regard to addiction, we live in an enlightened time. There is a wealth of scientific information about the biology of addiction and, of greater importance, there are now proven ways to arrest the addictive process and return those who suffer from it to productive, happy and loving lives. Yet our culture continues to hold fast to many time honored myths and untruths. Here are a few that continue to make the road to recovery less than straight:
- Alcoholics are morally deficient persons. They are wantonly hedonistic pleasure seekers who irresponsibly choose to keep poisoning themselves with toxic substances. Talk to someone who is in recovery and ask him or her how much "fun" they were having as they chased the illusory dream of "better living through chemistry." Ask them about the guilt and shame they felt when, in occasional moments of lucidity, they realized the harm and sorrow they were causing their families and friends, but then also realized they could not stop their deadly behavior. Alcoholics drink because they can't not drink.
-Alcoholics can be taught to drink like normal persons. Once you have soaked a cucumber in vinegar and brine, there is no way to change it back into a cucumber--once a pickle, always a pickle. In my over 25 years of working with those who suffer from alcohol abuse, I have never seen anyone return to "moderate" drinking for any period of time. I have seen many people die trying. A pickle clearly needs to learn how to be the best pickle it can be, but it will always be a pickle.
-Alcoholics drink to escape, or to cope with some major underlying psychological deficiency. In fact, alcoholism is a primary disease. The medical textbooks call it sui generis, which is Latin for "self-generated." Those who abuse alcohol may manifest all sorts of emotional and psychological problems but those problems are not the cause of the alcoholism. Put another way, alcoholics don't drink because they have problems, they have problems because they drink. Those who get into and remain actively involved with their recovery have no higher incidence of mental or emotional illness than the rest of the population. They don't become saints, but they do have the same fighting chance as everyone else to get on and stay on the road that leads to life.
So what is to be done to deal with this terrible malady which afflicts between 10 and 15% of our population and which costs our economy over $180 billion a year? More specifically, what can we as Christians who have been called to bring the good news of the Gospel to an ailing world do? For one, we can bring the truth to individual and social situations in which addictions run rampant. We can work to lessen the prevalence of denial, that insidious, almost demonic force which motivates people to overlook or explain away alcoholic behavior in those they love. We can learn more about intervention; a structured means by which family and friends confront alcoholics with the real impact of their drinking and offer love and hope and treatment as a way back to sober living. We can work to understand that those in the throws of addiction who often manifest disgusting and frightening behavior are really sick and chemically altered. We wouldn't turn our backs on a diabetic who was dazed, confused and incoherent due to insulin shock. Would we walk away from an alcoholic manifesting the same kind of chemically altered behavior?
We can learn more about Alcoholics Anonymous, that surely God-given program which has restored thousands of hopeless persons to sober and productive lives. A.A. is stridently "non-religious" and its ranks contain those from many different faiths and no faith at all, but it's message fits hand-in-glove with the good news of the Gospel: there is a way to live with hope, and trust and love; there is a God who cares for us and whose will is that we have life and have it in abundance.
Those who are closely involved with the alcoholic--family, friends, coworkers--also suffer from this disease. So insidious is this disease, so crafty and snake-like; that those who love the alcoholic are often plagued with guilt or rage or utter confusion. They say, "maybe if I were a better husband, or friend, or boss, she wouldn't drink so much." Or, "If he really loved me, he would stop drinking and destroying our family." They will often accept the alcoholic's explanation for abusing alcohol "you'd drink too if you had my wife" or, "I work really hard and therefore I'm entitle to play really hard." Excuses and explanations are legion but they are all false. For the alcoholic, there is simply no rational reason to consume alcohol since, whatever is going on, alcohol will only make it worse. In time, with help, they may come to understand the phrase "love the person, hate the disease." Al-Anon is a support group for those whose lives have been affected by close contact with an alcoholic and it offers the same miraculous path to recovery. I would encourage you to learn more about it.
I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, but I would bet that there are several people here, in this congregation, who have grown up with, or known, an alcoholic. I also know that there are people here who have experienced the miraculous, transforming power of God that leads to recovery, both for the alcoholic and for those who love him or her. There are people who have seen beyond the stigma, beyond the crazy and off-putting behavior; who have been willing to confront the suffering alcoholic with the reality of his or her disease. Put simply, anyone who doubts the power of God need only talk to someone in recovery to grasp the reality that the healing and reconciliation which Jesus brought to the world is still at work.
A final word about cucumbers and pickles. I don't much care for cucumbers. When they arrive on a salad, I carefully pick them out and put the slices on the edge of my salad plate. I have much the same feeling for pickles which, to me, are just cucumbers with a bad attitude. But, over the years, I have heard from many folks who extol the taste and virtues of pickles. My daughter has assured me that there is nothing better than a good Jewish dill pickle. I don't understand it, but I trust that people who like these things are telling me the truth. The same might be true of the alcoholic. The active alcoholic, the person who has "pickled" his body and mind and spirit with alcohol, is surely a distasteful person, one whom we might wish to push to the edges of our lives. But inside, beneath the alcohol or drug saturated exterior, is a real person whom God loves and who needs our love. And this love, the love that God sent us in Jesus and which we are called upon to manifest to the world, is the one thing that can restore the suffering alcoholic to sober life. Since the time of the reading from Proverbs up to today, we have always had alcoholics in our world. What may be different today is that we know there is a way out of addiction, a path, which in Christ, God has shown us.
November 5, 2006
Dr. Thomas S. Baker
e-mail