Sin or Solace? Religious Views on Alcohol and Alcoholism

Abstract

The Bible condemns drunkenness as evil, yet praises wine as a gift from God. The concept of alcoholism as a disease is of much later origin, and has moral implications on which the churches have varied opinions. Islam forbids alcohol, but Moslem scholars are divided on how much is actually consumed by its followers. Mormons and fundamentalist Protestants are in the same dilemma. The Jews and European Christianity developed viniculture while forbidding drunkenness; American denominations agree on the latter, but differ widely and even vehemently on whether drinking itself is wrong. The W.C.T.U. and other movements which led to Prohibition in the U.S. confused abstinence with temperance, creating a false dichotomy between total abstinence and drunkenness which actually negated the concept of temperance. Both Alcoholics Anonymous and various current religious approaches exemplify a rapprochement between theism and the disease model.