AN ISSUE WITH ALCOHOL

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After I retired from pastoral ministry, it became my opportunity to travel with Michigan Interfaith Council on Alcohol Problems (MICAP) for about six years. That organization has roots in the Michigan United Methodist Church and I spent many weekends travelling throughout southwest and mid-Michigan, mostly in UMC congregations, but also a few others that had concerns about alcohol problems. I learned much about the issues of alcohol and gaming (gambling).

Fairly recently, The  Kentucky Bluegrass region experienced one of those horrendous accidents that once more reminded me why I feel so strongly about alcohol-related problems. In this case, a Michigan family-of-five found itself headed back to Michigan in the early-morning hours. Following their Florida vacation, the Issam Abbas family was struck head-on by south-bound driver as they approached Lexington headed north on I75. If memory serves me correctly, this family was the family of a Michigan Physician.

As a result of the crash, a family of five was killed--deleted from existence by a wrong-way Kentucky driver from nearby Georgetown.  Forty-one-year-old Joey Lee Bailey was also killed in the accident—6 people in total—a complete family. After-the-fact Toxicology Reports revealed that Bailey had a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) of .306 and was at fault. He had driven at least six miles during which others narrowly avoided being struck by him.

Bailey’s BAC was .304, nearly four times the legal limit for drinking and driving, a total of six members of one family are dead because of one man’s determination to exercise his right to drink and drive. There was a time when such a tragedy was defended on the basis of it being accidental but that is no longer true, no matter how much, or how little, you demand your right to justify drinking alcohol.

The drinking of alcohol is a debatable subject among people of strong religious conviction and I would never argue the issue of alcoholic beverage on the basis of one’s religious view. I do contend, though, that drinking alcoholic beverages is a both a matter of personal choice and a moral-ethical question, Moreover,  we know enough about human health and the effects of alcohol on the body today to know that alcohol is not only a depressant, it is highly damaging to certain organs of the human body .

The simple truth is that we know far too much about alcohol today to legitimize it as an acceptable social practice; it is NOT. It is an illegitimate product that destroys human bodies, breaks up families, and rips apart the fabric of our society. Its effects on the human body are sufficient to make it an ethical question when we are choosing whether or not to drink, and especially to combine it with another drug, or insist on the right to drink and drive.

To drink and drive is unquestionably anti-social behavior as illustrated in the willful, self-destructive behavior of Joey Lee Bailey of Georgetown, KY and the Muslim family of five from Michigan that he murdered by driving the wrong way on I75 in Lexington at 2:30 a.m. We know the average American taxpayer pays out four dollars for every dollar of revenue gained when Municipalities license alcohol by the drink and rake in the tax dollars. This makes government (which is us) equally responsible, for we all want the tax dollars to recover part of our costs.

But you say, you cannot charge him with murder. YES I can. He chose to take that first drink and he had no guarantees after that. Alcohol is a proven depressant. The very first drink you take, even .03 lite beer, begins reducing your self-control and your inhibitions. It means with every drop you drink, you speed up just a little bit in your down-hill slide of self-control, and from there-on it is downhill ALL the way. Many states have awakened to this truth and no longer allow DUI as an allowable defense.

As a pastor, I have gone to the Tavern and taken a friend to my home and helped him sober up after he called me at an obnoxious hour asking my help. As a family member, I am but one of seventy-five million Americans affected by having a problem drinker in the household. I think I have about seen it all.

From walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com – 

How long, or Lord; how long dare we justify the social acceptability of this anti-social practice that justifies murder and excuses the offender while ignoring the civil right of the victim?

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