14. Drunkenness.

The sister of debauchery is drunkenness, and in the words of St. Basil the Great, “wine

has never been a friend of chastity.” However, the vice of drinking is related not only to

sexual depravity, but to all crimes in general. By far the majority of crimes are committed

by people who are either drunk, or at least a little tipsy. A large proportion of all family

tragedies, individual woes and social disasters originate from wine and drunkenness.

The priest’s first concern in all parishes must be to disprove the notion that

drunkenness is not really a sin or vice at all. The most obvious consideration here is that

it does not like to continue in a mild form, but without fail it turns gradually into constant

heavy drinking. Besides this, and even more importantly, it is essential to convince

penitents of the fact that intoxication, especially when it goes as far as drinking bouts, is

never simply a bad habit, but is always combined with a constantly malicious disposition

of soul. Is this really so? Do we not on the contrary, meet such good, compassionate and

considerate people, who seem to be the best of people when they are sober, and would

appear to be saints were it not for their bouts of drinking, lasting as much as two weeks,

which occur several times a year? But it seems like this only to a superficial observer.

Anyone who knows such people more closely will tell you either that they are full of

lustful desires, to which they cannot give themselves up when sober, or, as is more often

the case, that they are possessed by an unsatisfied love of honour, or bitterness over an

unsuccessful life, or else they are tormented by malice and envy. Being unable to realize

their desires openly, they make use of drink in order to transfer themselves to a dream

world. They stupify themselves with wine and then imagine themselves to be generals,

ministers, famous intellectuals or artists or successful lovers; as being victorious over

their enemies and taking revenge on them. Let drunkards therefore not make the usual

excuse when they are reproached: “I drink, but then I don’t offend anyone, I don’t take

money from anyone unjustly, I don’t spread gossip or start arguments” and so on. In their

souls they always have the poison of malice, envy, discontent or adultery and, until they

kill such desires in themselves, they will not be able to give up their hard drinking.

Drunkenness is an indirect manifestation of other passions, of which the victims

themselves are often not fully aware. It is, however, impossible to be healed of this

sickness until the passion which is causing it is expelled from the heart. This of course

concerns really hard drinking. When young people go on drinking sprees it is usually

either in order to get up courage for a sexual orgy or to prove to themselves that they are

already grown men — preposterous though such a method of proof may be. When people

repent of sins like this, besides explaining what a ridiculous “proof” this is, advise them

to keep away from their drunken company and find some sober companions. In general,

until drunkenness begins to turn into hard drinking, and provided it has not grown out of

some passion deeply rooted in the soul, a person offering sincere repentance for it can

always be freed from it with God’s help.

Drunkenness is one of the most harmful passions for our Orthodox people,xxvii if

not the most harmful. Therefore, besides giving drunkards advice about struggling with

their passion, a priest must give advice or rather, make demands of parents and those

educating children as to how to forestall it. They must not give vodka (spirits) to children

or adolescents, must not appear even slightly drunk in their presence, must not boast of

drunkenness or praise drunkards and drunkenness. It is a good practice to give a penance,

if only to do prostrations by themselves, to all sinners who have had so much to drink that

they have lost consciousness, become quarrelsome, or ill.

Although it is important to impress on drunkards the ruinous consequences of

drinking, I do not think it is really necessary to explain how to do so, as every priest, even

a young one, will be able to do it. But I would remind them that it is more useful not just

to be satisfied with a general picture of the harm caused by drinking, but also to ask the

person confessing about the conditions of his family life and work, and then say

something which concerns very closely his own life and the life of his family. Of course,

a spiritual father will in this case be in a stronger position if he personally knows his

spiritual son and his family and so can point out the actual consequences of his

intemperate life, or what may easily happen in the circumstances of his personal and

family life.

Nevertheless, almost the most difficult thing at confession is to teach a drunkard

who has lost control of himself to give up his evil habit. Surely masturbation is the only

other vice which is as difficult to dig up from the heart as drunkenness, if it has taken root

so deeply that it completely overpowers man’s will.

We have said that drinking bouts are able to hold people in their ignominious

captivity because they are united with a spiritual passion and malice. This is true, but it

also happens that the captive has also come to hate the passion itself, has already

humbled himself in his soul and is asking God and men to teach him how to be delivered

from it — but still he cannot get out of it. Maybe he has already joined a temperance

society and sworn an oath not to drink vodka or wine, but has even broken his oath. What

is his spiritual father to do then?

It will be useful to remind the penitent of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and ask

him: “Why was the father of the lost youth so convinced of his amendment that he

prepared a feast with singing, dancing and, of course, wine, without being afraid that it

would start his son on another binge after his involuntary hunger and sobriety?”

“Because,” you must answer, “in the first place, the Prodigal Son punished

himself: he sentenced himself to the position of a hired servant, expressed his intention to

become a slave instead of a master. Secondly, in order to fulfill this good resolution, he

had undertaken the podvig of a long and difficult journey and the podvig of abasing

himself and supplicating his father, although previously he had found it burdensome to

live with his father in plenty and kindness, as he had a self-willed and unsubmissive soul.

In exactly the same way, if the Lord expressed Himself so confidently about

Zaccheus — “Now is salvation come unto this house” — it was precisely because

Zaccheus of his own accord, and without waiting for any demands to be made, sentenced

himself to a complete mortification ot his passion. He promised to perform a feat very

difficult for a lover of possessions — to give away half his property and repay fourfold

those he had defrauded. There is a hope of correction for dypsomaniacs if they go to live

for a whole winter at the Valaamxxviii Monastery on Lake Ladoga, where it is impossible

to procure vodka, and condemn themselves to an obedience involving heavy labour, even

if they are rich. However, it is said that even if people do this one can be fully confident

of their self-correction only if they have stopped drinking for three years. Before this,

there is only a good and joyful hope.

It is understood that not every penitent can manage to go away to a monastery for

even six months. To those who cannot do this, it should be explained that, for repentance

to be lasting, it must be, firstly, performed with self-reproach and without grumbling

against others as being responsible for one’s fall. Secondly, there must be a resolution to

submit oneself to deprivations and labours that are yet harder and more bitter than those

to which one has already been subjected by this vice, such as poverty or illness, or loss of

one’s job. The difference between powerless and incorrigible people, on the one hand,

whining about their passion and position in life and, on the other, those who have

resolved without fail to raise themselves up with God’s help from their fall, is clear for all

to see. Before you is an official or clerk who has lost his job for drunkenness. When

asking for employment, although admitting his “weakness,” he will prove that it has been

exaggerated considerably in his reference, and that his comrades who drank more than he

did were not dismissed, because they were protected and were not opposed by people

wishing them evil, as he was. Now he is asking for a position which, despite being in the

provinces, is no worse than the one he had before, and perhaps even better. Another,

however, comes to you and tells you frankly that he was dismissed and admits that the

dismissal was fair. He asks for the most modest duties: a man with a university education

asks to be taken on as a clerk and a man who had formerly earned five times as much as a

steward or bailiff asks for a job as a yard-keeper. In both cases the applicant asks to be

taken on only until his first misdemeanor, and even asks not to be given anything better

until he gives concrete proof of his reform. When there is repentance and resolution like

this, there is already hope. When giving these examples, the spiritual father should

explain to the drunkard that his soul is like a person so ill that he has to submit to a severe

operation, even amputation of arms or legs, so as to avoid rotting alive. “Similarly, it is

essential for you to amputate your self-love: perhaps this will involve changing your

position in society, giving yourself up to heavy labour and a subordinate status for a time.

But after this you will be completely free of your shameful vice, and return boldly and

joyfully to your family and close friends. You must start by hating your fall and carry on

hating it until death itself. And I know people who were enslaved to the demon of drink

for a long time, but later were delivered from it altogether by means of such hard

struggles.”