A word about drunkenness

Composition by St. Demetrius of Rostov's “Tale on Drunkenness” is devoted to the condemnation of excessive alcohol consumption, distinguishing it from the moderate use of wine, given by God for the joy and health of people. The author, citing the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, compares drunkenness to the “grapes of Sodomomorra” and describes 10 “grapes” of its harm: darkness of the mind, shamelessness, revelation of secrets, inflamed lust, rage and quarrels, damage to health, waste of property, loss of salvation, the wrath of God and the destruction of the soul. Supporting his arguments with examples (including the story from the Patericon about the hermit who committed all his sins due to drunkenness), the saint calls for abstinence, emphasizing that drunkenness is due to intemperance, and wine is useful in moderation. “Wine is not blameless, but drunkenness is cursed” (Proverbs XX. 1), from which no matter how great harm comes, there is no need to talk about it. For everyone can see this from everyday experience, and in church books everywhere there is much written about the dangers of drunkenness. However, we will also remember something about the same thing here. The famous philosopher Anacharsis among the ancient Hellenes said that the grapevine will give birth to three clusters: firstly, a bunch of pleasure, secondly, rapture, and thirdly, a bunch of sorrow. The philosopher explained this in the sense that drinking wine in small quantities is a pleasure and is useful for a person, because it quenches thirst, gives health to the stomach and cheers the heart, while drinking in large quantities makes a person drunk, gives rise to numerous quarrels, kindles rage and incites him to war and battle, which is followed by considerable sadness. But if we wish to examine in detail the power of drunkenness and if we call drunkenness grapes, then we will find clusters of morals born from drunkenness that bring no benefit to a person, but harm and sadness, and we will find not three, but more, namely ten. Let drunkenness be called grapes, but not fruitful grapes, but perhaps those about which the prophet Moses writes in Deuteronomy: “Their grapes are from the vines of Sodom, and their vines are from Gomorrah, their grapes are a bunch of gall, their grapes are a bunch of bitterness; the wrath of serpents is their wine, and the wrath of asps is incurable” (Deut. XXXII. 32–33). Truly, drunkenness is the grapes of Sodomomorra and nothing other than clusters of gall, sorrows, full of snake and slate poison and giving rise to rage, for like the garden, such are the fruits! (Luke VI.43) The first bunch of bilious drunken grapes consists of darkening the mind, changing the mind and destroying memory, for drunken power, rising from the wine-filled stomach to the head, darkens the brain and confuses the mind. Therefore, it often happens that many in their drunkenness do not remember themselves and do not know what they are doing and what they are saying, like crazy; if any disaster or dishonor or injury befalls them, then in the morning they do not remember. On such, the words written in Proverbs are fulfilled: “I was beaten, and I was not sick, and I was mocked, but I did not understand” (Proverbs. XXIII. 35). The other bunch is shamelessness, for a drunkard is not ashamed of anyone, but, having destroyed shame, he utters words that are nasty, blasphemous, shameless, absurd, stingy and unworthy of chaste hearing, and his lips become like some kind of empty stable, filled with stinking pus, and his tongue is like a shovel with which pus is thrown out. The heart of such a person can be nothing else, except a hidden place of many evils, from where good cannot come, but only one evil, as the Gospel says; “An evil man brings out evil from the evil treasure of his heart, for out of the abundance of his heart his mouth speaks” (Luke VI. 45). The third bunch of drunken grapes is a failure to keep secrets, for everything that a sober person hides deep in his heart, buried in silence, whether it be his own secrets or secrets entrusted to him by someone else, the drunken person makes known to everyone. In addition, everything that was done long ago and consigned to oblivion, he remembers and resurrects like a dead man. This is like a barrel full of new drink, in which, when the drink is noisy and pouring out, the yeast does not stay at the bottom, but rises to the top and, driven out of the barrel by internal warmth, flows out. Likewise, in a drunken person, the power of intoxication disturbs the secrets of the heart and drives them out. He reveals secrets with his lips, just as yeast rises from the bottom of a barrel, and what usually happens, like food from a stomach filled with drunkenness, secrets are also thrown out by vomiting. When drunk, both of these, that is, food and secrets, turn into vomit. The fourth bunch of drunken Sodomomorra grapes is the inflaming of lust for carnal confusion. That is why the Apostle exhorts: “Do not get drunk with wine, for there is fornication in it” (Eph. V. 18), and Saint Basil the Great says: “Undoubtedly, from wine, as from some source, flows uncontrollable lust, which far exceeds even the fury of all dumb people towards the female sex; for dumb animals do not go beyond the boundaries of the natural, but Those who drink wine look for the female gender in men and the masculine gender in women.” The fifth cluster, full of snake and slate venom, is rage, anger, enmity, quarrels, fights and bloodshed. The prophet Hosea says: “When the princes began to become angry because of the wine, not only the princes, but also the common people, filled with wine, rebelled against each other with rage” (Hosea VII. 5). That is why the Pritochnik expresses censure: “Who is being fierce? Word of mouth to whom? For whom the courts. Who needs tightness and diarrhea? Who needs contrition in vain? Who has blue eyes? Is it not he who dwells in wine and oversees where the feasts take place?” (Prov. XXIII. 29–30). And Sirach admonishes: “Do not take courage in wine, for wine will destroy many: the furnace tempts iron, but the heart is tempted by wine in the quarrel of the proud” (Sir. XXXI. 29-30). And the same one also says: “Wine that drinks much wine brings grief to souls; with anger and slander it will increase the rage of the madman” (Sir. XXXI. 34-35). The sixth gall bunch of drunken grapes is damage to health, weakening of bodily strength, trembling of hands, pain in the head, changes in the eyes, distress in the stomach, groans, illnesses, premature old age, shortening of years of life and early death. The seventh bunch is waste of property, destruction of wealth and lack of profits. “A drunken worker,” says Sirach, “will not be rich” (Sir.XIX. 1). Oh, how many there are who have come from great wealth to extreme poverty! An example of this would be the prodigal son. The eighth unsweetened bunch is deprivation of salvation, for drunkenness destroys, like material possessions, spiritual wealth. It dares to commit all sins, for the sin that a sober person abhors, fears or is ashamed of, the same sin he is not ashamed to commit while drunk, does not fear and does not disdain. In the Patericon there is a story about a certain Egyptian desert dweller, to whom the demon promised that he would no longer oppress him with any temptations, if only he committed one sin out of three. He suggested the following three sins: murder, fornication and drunkenness. Do, he said, one of them: either kill a person, or commit fornication, or get drunk once, and then you will remain in peace, and after that I will no longer tempt you with any temptations. The hermit thought to himself this way: it is terrible to kill a person, for this is in itself a great evil, and deserves the death penalty both in God’s court and in civil law. To commit fornication, shame, to destroy the previously preserved purity of the body is a pity, and it is disgusting to defile one who has not yet known this defilement. Getting drunk once seems to be a small sin, for a person soon sobers up with sleep. So, I will go, get drunk so that the demon no longer oppresses me, and I will live peacefully in the desert. And so, taking his handicrafts, he went to the city and, having sold them, entered the tavern and got drunk. According to the action of Satan, he happened to talk with a certain shameless and adulterous woman. Being seduced, he fell with her. When he was committing a sin with her, the woman’s husband came and, finding him sinning with his wife, began to beat him; and he, having recovered, began to fight with that husband and, having overcome him, killed him. Thus, that hermit committed all three sins: fornication and murder, starting with drunkenness. Whatever sins he feared and abhorred when sober, he boldly committed while drunk and through this ruined his many years of work. Was it only later through true repentance that he was able to find them again, for by the mercy of God a man who truly repents is returned to his former merits, which he destroyed through the Fall. This is how drunkenness leads to all sins and deprives one of salvation, destroying virtues. Saint Chrysostom clearly speaks about this: “Drunkenness, if it finds in someone chastity, shame, reason, meekness, and humility, everything plunges into the abyss of crime.” Will that person who through drunkenness lose all his virtues not lose his salvation and be cut off from the heavenly inheritance? The apostle speaks the truth: “Drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. VI. 10). The ninth gall cluster is the wrath of God, for a drunkard, breaking the commandments of God, provokes the wrath of God with his sins. Therefore, the prophet Isaiah exclaims: “Woe to those who rise in the morning, who drink strong drink, who drink until the evening: for I will burn the wine. They drink wine with harps and harps, and tambourines, and pipes, but do not know the works of God” (Is. V. 11-12). To such the prophet Jeremiah says: “Drink and get drunk, and vomit, and fall, and do not arise from the presence of his sword, I will send among you” (Jer. XXV. 27). The tenth and most bitter bunch of drunken grapes is the undoubted destruction of the soul, for other sinners, when they approach the hour of their death, can repent and regret their sins, having a sober mind; How can a drunk man, dying, repent if he does not remember himself and does not know that an unexpected death is approaching him? For those who die without repentance, Gehenna is inevitable. These are the bunches of Sodomomorra grapes, that is, drunkenness, the taste of which, although at the beginning seems sweet, but later turns into bilious bitterness and into snake and slate poison. All this is said not to blaspheme wine, but to root out drunkenness, for wine was created by God for the joy and health of people, and not for drunkenness and harm. Let us listen to what Saint Chrysostom says: “Wine was given so that we would have fun and not be outrageous, so that we would laugh and not be ridiculed, so that we would be healthy and not sick, so that we could correct the weakness of the body and not destroy our spiritual strength.” He also says in another place: “Drunkenness does not come from wine, but from immeasurable consumption: wine was given to us for no other purpose than for bodily health, but this is prevented by its immeasurable consumption.” From these words of the teacher it is clear that it is not the wine that is to blame, but the intemperance of those who drink beyond measure. The same saint considers drunkards, for their immeasurable drunkenness, more dishonest than dogs, donkeys and other dumb animals, for every animal does not eat or drink more than it needs, and no one can force it to eat or drink more than its nature desires. A drunken person, without coercion, fills his belly more and more, so that he even harms himself.