Drinking

[BillTheSlink]

My name is Yessenia, I started this thread.
Thank You all who took It serious. You who
were serious opened so many doors for me.
And those who found excuses on why mod,
Social,friendly,celebrating,relaxing or just a
Kick back drink is o.k… You must not of had
your family torn apart from alcohol and even
“DEATH”. Big words I don’t understand, but
I do know that our body is a “TEMPLE”
and It should not have to endure alcohol &
smoke of any kind…I will keep this thread in
my Prayers!!!

If you didn’t think I took it seriously I am very sorry, but believe me I did. I too have been touched by the disease of alcoholism and also drug addiction. My Grandfather on my Mother’s side died of liver failure because he drank ALL THE TIME. I lost an uncle who had a rare blood disease that was killing off his organs and his refusal to stop drinking hastened his death when his kidneys and liver finally failed. In the same token I have been affected worse by what we would think of as “puritanism”. My Grandmother raised me and during her first marriage she got drunk one time and her and her abusive-gambler husband both took an oath they would never drink again. They both took it seriously and even after she had enough of the physical abuse and when she came home one day to find everything in the house sold to pay gambling debts, down to the clock on the wall, left him and filled for divorce she never drank again, but a day never went by in my childhood it wasn’t pounded into me how evil alcohol was because she had to impose her decision that since she couldn’t drink it must be evil and when I got old enough to form my own opinions and disagreed I was beaten just for not being of the same mindset.

My Mother and Father’s marriage broke up because Mom started getting drunk all the time and going to bars all night and started seeing other men and then got on drugs. I think it was coke but I am not really sure. She’s clean now and did qualify for an annulment because she was underage when married to my Dad who was an adult at the time (they forged the identification papers) and she clean up and married a solid Catholic man and converted. Unforgettably we lost him to lung cancer. To be honest I had more respect and feeling for him than my own blood kin.

My Grandfather on my Father’s side drank heavily and was what is known as a closet alcoholic and Grandmother refused to admit he even drank. He had diabetes and basically he developed a situation which was similar to Alzheimer’s disease and ended up a bed-fast near vegetable which we took care of him (me and Grandmother) from the time I was 13 to about 24. Those were precious years lost.

I am sorry, but to say I didn’t take you seriously isn’t true if that was what you meant to imply and if that wan’t directed at me forgive me, but it is something I do take seriously. That being said I enjoy a good beer, fruit wine, mead, and sometimes a shot or two, but I don’t have a drinking problem and keep an eye on myself to make sure I don’t develop one and if I ever see it’s trending that way I will lay it all down, but I won’t impose restrictions on other people because I have some weakness.

 

[BillTheSlink]

Well in that case someone who is addicted to Porn is not sinning…

Are you confusing mortal sin vs venial? That is where free will comes into play.

No, in order to be mortal sin you have to have “full consent of the will” In venial sin there must be “some consent of the will”. To extend your idea of porn, or sexual morality, let’s say I am in the habitual sin of masturbation and lust. According to the Catechism if it has strong force over me my culpability is venial; however, if I am leading a perfectly chaste life and tonight go to sleep and dream of even the most degenerate forms of sexual expression I did not sin because that is something I have absolutely no control over.

Your argument breaks down however, in that pornography addiction is a mental dependence and not a physical addiction. Your basically trying to compare someone who regularly uses marijuana to heroin. In the case of the marijuana smoker he would be agitated and depressed if he decided to quite. The heroin addict would get very, very sick and could even die if he didn’t get his fix. Now obviously smoker’s won’t die if they can’t get their tobacco; however, there are more effective treatment for heroin that smoking addiction and the success rate for heroin recovery even exceeds that of smoking for those who enter treatment. The success rate for heroin treatment reaches above 40%, while even the most successful treatments for nicotine are around 18-22 percent and it’s with a combination of therapy and Chantix, a drug which has serious psychological side effects and can be dangerous in its own right. Trying to quit cold turkey on smoking lowers your chances of quitting to around 5% or less depending on what source you look up as they don’t agree.

 

[Annabelle_Marie]

There are alot of alcoholic fathers in az. So I suppose
That was Jesus plan…

No…it’s not Jesus’s plan…it’s also not His plan that children should have to deal with the consequences of alcoholic parents. But we have free will and people make bad choices and sometimes we are the ones that have to deal with it.

“the Lord is close to the broken hearted and He saves those who are crushed in spirit”

 

[Annabelle_Marie]

Actually both my Priest and Mother Angelica would disagree with you. In order for something to be a sin, according to my priest and confessor, you have to have free will in the matter. By the very nature of true addiction you do not have free will. Mother Angelica, of EWTN, of whom I cannot say I do not know anyone more “traditional/conservative” in outlook, always contended smoking was incredibly stupid, but not a sin.

An addiction is a sin…your greatest sin is when you do have free will. Using your previous example…the person that smokes heroine…when they do it the first time…yes most definetly a sin! Smoking…not sure about that one…it is of course something against your self…and often smokers end up having to live with the consequences as health is concerned.

I am not sure I agree with your priest about the nature of sin…ie. it not being a sin if you do not have free will. According to that logic…someone that shoots up on heroin and kills someone commits no sin? After all they did not have free will…they are addicted to heroin.

 

[tabycat]

The :Lord Jesus changed, at His Mother’s request, water into wine at the wedding at Cama. Paul sent Doctor Luke’s advise to Thimethy, for Thimethy to use a ‘little wine’ for his stomick (?)/ :extrahappy::angel1:

 

[BillTheSlink]

An addiction is a sin…your greatest sin is when you do have free will. Using your previous example…the person that smokes heroine…when they do it the first time…yes most definetly a sin! Smoking…not sure about that one…it is of course something against your self…and often smokers end up having to live with the consequences as health is concerned.

I am not sure I agree with your priest about the nature of sin…ie. it not being a sin if you do not have free will. According to that logic…someone that shoots up on heroin and kills someone commits no sin? After all they did not have free will…they are addicted to heroin.

I don’t think you can extend being addicted to heroin and the addict killing someone as the addicted having no free will because he is an addict. That doesn’t quite go together as addicts heroin makes you very docile when you are under its influance. Certainly you could say someone who was hallucinating on LSD and killed someone because they thought the victim was the angle of death when in fact they were wearing a habit didn’t commit the sin of murder, but they would still be sinning by taking the LSD since that’s non-addictive and they made that choice, but there sin would be in taking LSD and also breaking the law against taking LSD, not murder. Of course they would and should still go to jail to protect society from them, although in all likelihood the sentence will be mitigated.

One thing you have to remember too is that most people who get on drugs, or even say smoke for the first time, are not fully culpable in the matter as they generally do it when they are kids and their brains are not even fully developed and most drug users are trying to escape a very harsh reality, such as abuse, grinding poverty, loneliness, or other very bad situations. Do people begin using hard drugs when they have a wonderful marriage, well behaved children, well paying jobs, and are 35 years old? Well, a few, but not many. Many people wonder why movie stars, singers, and the rich and famous get on the stuff. The truth is even though I live in poverty I am quite sure I am happier than 99.9% of them. The pressure, not knowing who your real friends are, or for that matter not having a single one, never being in one place for more than a night or two, and the loss of family ties makes them miserable. Add to that most do not practice any religion, and well we know what St. Agustin said about a God shaped whole in our hearts. I am quite sure God takes that into consideration when judging them.

I am willing to bet that when we get to heaven there will be more former “junkies” and such there than CEOs.

 

[Annabelle_Marie]

I don’t think you can extend being addicted to heroin and the addict killing someone as the addicted having no free will because he is an addict. That doesn’t quite go together as addicts heroin makes you very docile when you are under its influance. Certainly you could say someone who was hallucinating on LSD and killed someone because they thought the victim was the angle of death when in fact they were wearing a habit didn’t commit the sin of murder, but they would still be sinning by taking the LSD since that’s non-addictive and they made that choice, but there sin would be in taking LSD and also breaking the law against taking LSD, not murder. Of course they would and should still go to jail to protect society from them, although in all likelihood the sentence will be mitigated.

One thing you have to remember too is that most people who get on drugs, or even say smoke for the first time, are not fully culpable in the matter as they generally do it when they are kids and their brains are not even fully developed and most drug users are trying to escape a very harsh reality, such as abuse, grinding poverty, loneliness, or other very bad situations. Do people begin using hard drugs when they have a wonderful marriage, well behaved children, well paying jobs, and are 35 years old? Well, a few, but not many. Many people wonder why movie stars, singers, and the rich and famous get on the stuff. The truth is even though I live in poverty I am quite sure I am happier than 99.9% of them. The pressure, not knowing who your real friends are, or for that matter not having a single one, never being in one place for more than a night or two, and the loss of family ties makes them miserable. Add to that most do not practice any religion, and well we know what St. Agustin said about a God shaped whole in our hearts. I am quite sure God takes that into consideration when judging them.

I am willing to bet that when we get to heaven there will be more former “junkies” and such there than CEOs.

But we are not discussing culpability - we are discussing if it is a sin. I tried to clarify the venial/mortal sin with you however you indicated it would not be a sin.

I think you are setting a dangerous slope for relativism. So, I have split this onto another thread as not to take away from the OP’s thread. Feel free to defend your position there…especially if you think I misstated your position.