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Alcohol is such a terrible, terrible drug. It can eviscerate our families, deaden our souls, and reduce our brains to mush. Through the eyes of my patients and my patients’ families, I see so much of the damage it can do to our lives that when I read Philip Yancey’s latest column, for a brief instant I thought to myself, ‘how can he be so insensitive?’
Paul follows Jesus’ logic in the Sermon on the Mount: murder and adultery differ from hatred and lust only by a matter of degree. Indeed, the flagrantly evil person has a peculiar advantage of sorts: an inner gyroscope of conscience that registers a sense of being off course.
I once accepted a speaking engagement among Christians involved in Twelve Step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. As I talked with the attendees and pondered what to say, I finally decided on the ironic title, “Why I Wish I Was an Alcoholic.” It occurred to me that what recovering alcoholics confess every day—personal failure, and the daily need for grace and help from friends and a Higher Power—represent high hurdles for those of us who take pride in our independence and self-sufficiency…
Unless we accept the grim diagnosis, we will not seek a cure.
–Philip Yancey, “The benefits of brokenness”, Christianity Today, May 27, 2008
But then I realized that that is the gravity of the human condition. The blind spot is so deadly to our souls that an ironic title like “Why I Wish I Was an Alcoholic” could be an appropriate title for a talk given at an AA meeting.
It was a sobering realization.
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