14: TO DRINK OR NOT TO DRINK

Dear Joe,

Well, I’ve got myself in a real mess now. See, it all happened about two weeks ago when I went over to my best friend’s apartment as usual to see how she was doing. (Her name is Shelly, and she’s nineteen years old and lives alone.) Well, when I got there, she asked me if I wanted something to drink, so I said sure. Well, she brought out a bottle of wine, wine coolers, and beer. I asked her where she got them, and she told me she has an older friend who can buy the stuff. I had never drunk in my life, and she knew I never did and never wanted to either.

Well, I don’t know how it started or why I did, but I started drinking a glass of wine. I said, “It tastes good,” then I said, “A couple won’t hurt me.” Then the next thing I knew, the bottle of wine was gone, and so were the wine coolers (one four-pack). Then the next thing I knew, I started on a can of beer, and that night I was as alone as a bum on the street.

Joe, I’m real scared now because for one, I drank and got drunk, and for two, I did stuff that night I can’t even say. And ever since that night, I’ve drunk six nights out of the fourteen days since I started, and I haven’t yet got drunk again, but I want help. Will you please help me? I’ve been a Christian for a very long time, and I don’t want to lose to the devil.

Dear Joe,

I care so much about people and what they do with their lives. I think it is such a tragedy to see so many teenagers today throw their lives away with drugs and alcohol. Just three days ago, two of my good friends were pretty badly injured in a drunk-driving accident. They got in the car with two guys who had been drinking, and they went into a guardrail on a bridge and went off. Needless to say, both of my friends were also drinking. The two guys weren’t hurt, and my two friends got off easy with a broken jaw, rib, and some stitches.

For years, high-school and college students have told me that drinking and lack of sexual morals go together like Siamese twins. When you start drinking, your morals slide. Far too often, the two walk hand in hand all the way to the abortion clinic or the tear-stained pillow.

Teen drinkers are twice as likely to lose their precious virginity wedding gift as those who don’t.[1]

Date rape (the ultimate oxymoron) on college campuses has risen by tragic landslide proportions in the last ten years. Ninety percent of the time, when the perpetrator and victim of sexual assault are acquainted, alcohol is involved.[2] As one dean of students reports, “I don’t know of one case of sexual assault where students haven’t been drinking. I tell students on my campus, ‘Get drunk and you run the risk of being raped.’”

Thud!

Our sports camps have a staff of seventeen hundred collegiate Christian athletes. They’re about the happiest, most attractive, fun, enthusiastic bunch of kid-loving people you ever laid eyes on. Though some have fallen during their teen years, all are committed to waiting for marriage for sexual intimacy. And get this: All seventeen hundred don’t drink the entire time they’re under our employment. Most never drink and won’t throughout their lives.

Why? Because they don’t want to cause a younger person to stumble. Because all American alcohol is considered “strong drink” and is forbidden in Scripture. And because they value their moral character.

Alcohol abuse is rampant in our country! The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that in a 2017 survey, 30 percent of high-school students drank alcohol in the previous thirty days, and 14 percent binge drank![3]

But high-school kids around the country tell me it’s even worse than that —that about three-fourths of the students they know drink at least occasionally. In college, it’s more like four-fifths.

The true stories pour into my mailbox. The alcohol and drug stories all say the same thing: “Drinking and drugs rape your morals.”

SYBIL

One night, I decided to hang out with a good guy friend at his apartment. He was a freshman in college —I was a junior in high school. Going into the evening, I had no idea what was in store for me. I began the evening with a couple of drinks and a few shots. Very soon after that, the alcohol had overcome some of my mind. Chris, my friend, and a few of his friends were smoking pot —something I had quit and promised myself I wouldn’t do anymore. I gave in to the peer pressure and soon was very high. The friends left, and Chris and I started kissing. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was losing my virginity. Chris ignored my “No, I’m not ready for this.” Immediately I passed out. I woke up to Chris forcing himself into me very strongly. To this day, I still don’t know whether I am a virgin or not. The pain, regret, and hurt I have suffered could have all been prevented if only I had thought before I acted.

ADRIANNE

When I drink, I do very stupid things. You aren’t thinking the alcohol is controlling you, but it is. One time I got drunk at a party and fooled around with two guys. The only thing I know about them is their names. I got a very bad reputation. I got called a slut, and no one respected me. I also put my life in danger. I let someone who was high drive me home. I did all this just to be cool.

KATHY

I never thought I would regret sex so much. One night I was at a party, and I got drunk and had sex with someone else while going out with my boyfriend. I felt awful, and I was scared of diseases. Then I made myself stop drinking because I knew if I wasn’t drunk, I wouldn’t have had sex (not that that’s a good excuse). I didn’t drink for a couple of months and felt a little better.

Then I was introduced to drugs. I promise this ties in with sex. When you start smoking pot, you begin to not care about anything else. I started seeing a guy friend who sold it, and he wanted to have sex. I promised myself I wouldn’t. Anyway, I did have sex with the bad guy, and I became miserable —I’m still miserable. I’ve hurt everything about me. I can’t even be happy unless I’m faking it, which is constant.

I guess my main point is, once you have sex, even if you do love the person, it only leads to more, and eventually you’ll want to experiment even more. All it is, is heartache.

Many scoffers will read those warnings about alcohol and counter, “Didn’t Jesus turn water into wine?” The answer is yes, but no.

Here’s what the Bible says about alcohol:

Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler,

and whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise.

PROVERBS 20:1

Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue strong drink,

who stay up late in the evening that wine may inflame them!

ISAIAH 5:11

You can see that the Bible specifically condemns not only getting high or drunk, but also partaking of “strong drink.” In biblical times, “strong drink” (sikera in the original Greek of the New Testament) referred to any unmixed or undiluted wine. When Jesus turned water into wine in John 2, He didn’t make sikera. He made oinos, weak wine diluted with water. When Paul told Timothy, in 1 Timothy 5:23, that he should drink wine, he told him to do it for medicinal purposes (for a stomach problem). Again, it was oinos, not sikera. (Today we have sophisticated medicines for such needs.) According to researcher Robert Stein, in biblical times, people used wine to purify unsafe water, not as a way to get high.[4] Strong drink in biblical times was from 3 percent to 11 percent alcohol. The least ratio of water-to-wine mixture was three parts water to one part wine. That produced a sub-alcoholic drink that was a maximum of 2.5 percent to 2.75 percent alcohol. Normally, the ratio was even higher, up to twenty to one. That’s twenty parts water to one part alcohol, for an alcohol content of less than 1 percent.

By contrast, modern American beer usually has an alcoholic content of 5 percent. Modern wines have 9 percent to 11 percent alcohol; one brand has 20 percent alcohol. Brandy contains 15 percent to 20 percent alcohol; hard liquor has 40 percent to 50 percent alcohol. According to biblical standards, these beverages would all be considered strong drink.

At age sixteen, Sara would have strongly urged you to avoid alcohol like the plague. Like the vast majority of high-school and college students today, she had a family who didn’t.

Sara, her mom, her dad, and her brother lived in the suburbs of a large city. From the outside looking in, you’d say they had it all —money, cars, action, sports, beauty (man, Sara is beautiful). All the trappings were there. But a guest named Jack Daniels always hid himself in their home, inside a bottle. You see, Sara’s dad was an alcoholic. He just couldn’t kick the habit that he’d begun so many years before.

During Sara’s sophomore year in high school, Sara’s dad died. His body just couldn’t take any more alcohol. If he would have known his ill-timed fate, you can bet your last penny that he’d never have taken his first sip. But like all the others who take “just one drink” or say, “Aw, it’s just one or two beers,” he said, “It will never happen to me.”

One week after her dad died, Sara’s brother was in a friend’s red-hot car coming home late one night from a party. The friend was drinking, and his senses were dulled. The car left the highway and ran head-on into a tree. Suddenly, the “ideal little family” of four caring loved ones had been transformed into a lonely mom and a bewildered teenager clinging to each other and the Kleenex box, searching for answers and wondering how alcohol could be so heartless.

Nobody wants to be an alcoholic, but those beer commercials during halftime of the Super Bowl look so innocent and inviting.

Nobody wants to be a drug addict, hopelessly trembling, begging, or robbing for the next fix. But that guy with the bag of weed who sits next to you in algebra class sure does describe that first high in alluring terms.

You see, all sin is just like that. Satan is smart. He makes the next step look so good that he blinds you from the end result.

“You know when to stop,” he whispers into your ear. “Just this once.”

“One beer won’t hurt anybody.”

“You can handle it.”

“Real men do it, so why don’t you?”

The intelligent man, the woman of vision, the nineteen-year-old who knows what kind of parent he/she wants to be, says, “Never.”

Here’s how a friend of mine said, “Never again.”

Joe,

Thanks for your letter and the book.

It is very good and has helped me greatly with some problems I have been facing lately. I can feel myself changing greatly every day since I decided to let God run my life. It is truly amazing. I get so excited about life now, it is just unbelievable. Before I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart, I had a problem with drinking (and other things). My dad is an alcoholic, and my brother also is. Therefore, I believed my course of life would follow the same path. I thought there was no way around it. I began to feel really bored with life, and I found myself really dependent on alcohol. At first, I thought drinking was all right since I grew up around it. I felt it was just part of life —a necessary part of life. How terribly wrong I was! I tried to stop drinking after realizing I was putting myself in bodily harm. I told myself I was not going to drink for a month. The first night of that month was one of the toughest struggles I’ve been through. I felt that I needed to drink more than anything else. But I didn’t.

The second night of that month, I gave in. My strength was not strong enough to overcome my dependency. I felt like a failure. I knew I could not do it alone. Now, as a true Christian, I’ve tried to stop again. This time it was different! I asked Jesus to help me with my problem and to show me the way to a happy life, and that is exactly what He did.

When I tried to stop drinking for the second time, it was one of the easiest things I have ever done. I felt no need whatsoever to have alcohol in my system. It was amazing how much easier it was that second time. But we both know why it was so easy. It was because Jesus was in the driver’s seat. I no longer dislike this earth. The new friends, wonderful times, and all the better ways I look at life are just incredible. I have never been so happy, and this happiness will be growing more and more every day! I know there will be trials, but I also know that whatever comes my way, with the Lord’s help, I will be able to handle anything!

Discussion Questions

  1. Why do teens drink so much?
  2. In your own words, how does drinking often lead to sexual misconduct?
  3. Why is “Just this once” such a dangerous way to think?