Drugs & Alcohol
(Prelude: Another school assignment on my opinion of drugs & alcohol. 3/1/17)
Drugs and alcoholic beverages can be a controversial topic in relation to the church and Biblical practices. To generalize, the value judgment for drugs and alcohol is that they are a bad thing to a lot of people. My moral stance comes from a religious authority and utilitarianism standpoint and because of that, I am of the opinion that people should not do drugs or drink alcohol and it will benefit the large majority if that were to happen. I think drugs and alcohol is an easy tool for the devil to use to get people to do what he wants them to do and go against what God wants. People with the egoism stance think it is no one else’s business who drinks alcohol or does drugs and how much they do it because they probably think that if they are doing it, they are doing what they think is best for themselves.
I think drugs and alcohol are inherently neutral things, but humans abuse things when it makes them feel good right away. I think humans, because of the fall, have an immediate gratification problem. If we have the option, we like to feel as good and as comfortable as much as possible. Some people might say that it is a “first world problem”, but I would argue that it is a human problem and the humans in the first world have the most accessibility to the drugs and alcohol that gives them the immediate gratification that we all crave. If I had to choose a side between “no drugs” or “do whatever you want”, I would choose no drugs. If I didn't have to choose to be on the “no drugs” side or the “do whatever you want” side, I would pick somewhere in the middle. I think drugs and alcohol can be good if used in the right ways. For example, prescribed drugs can potentially save someone’s life and in a similar scenario for alcohol, someone could drink enough that they have the courage to ask out their future wife and eventually have a child that would one day cure cancer, but not enough to be drunk. In Eph 5:18, it says not to get drunk, which speaks to what I was talking about how we should use drugs and alcohol in moderation for good, but do not overdo it.
In Psalms 19:21, it says we like to be in control, but God is in control which brings me to my next point; another reason why people abuse drugs and alcohol is because they like to feel in control. Some people might think that abusing drugs and alcohol is a way to release control and that is the case sometimes, but not all the time. Someone has told me that they abused alcohol because they know what experience they are getting out of it, so they choose that in place of really experiencing real life and all the ups and downs that go with it. One other reason why Christians want to abuse drugs and alcohol is to “hit pause on life”. Sometimes the pressure of being a Christian with all the things life throws at you is too much and you just want a few hours to forget it all and relax. I think that is another example of not trusting God and kind of bypassing Him to go to something worldly that is only a band-aid on a gunshot wound. My best friend went through a drug problem and may even still be going through it because I am hardly ever with him anymore because I am stuck away at college and it is harder to help him than it should be compared to when I was only 20 minutes away from him rather than 6 hours. He claims to know Jesus and his knowledge of Christianity actually surprised me, but I'm worried he just knows the right things to say and not actually have a relationship with God. In 1 Corinthians 15:58, it says to stand tall and not to let anything change you. Drugs change you. My best friend was almost unrecognizable when he was on drugs. It was blatantly obvious when he was on drugs when we were in person because his eyes were glossy, he’d walk real slow and things like that. Also, I could even tell when we would text each other. He would forget about our inside jokes that we always did, misspell things, and all the words he used were much more urban than usual.
Drugs and alcohol can be used as good or bad things depending on how you use them. They can be used for the wrong things and the wrong ways because of the fall, but it is up to us to rely on God to make the right choices.