Foreword
Alcohol Problems, A Report to the Nation, issued in 1967 by the Cooperative Commission on the Study of Alcoholism, is a significant report which deserves careful study. Its underlying assumptions should be evaluated and its recommendations debated. It does not have to be accepted without question. The Report, nevertheless, provides a foundation upon which wise programs of responsible action to correct and to prevent alcohol problems can be built.

The nation should be grateful to Dr. Thomas F. A. Plaut, who prepared the Report, and to the members of the Cooperative Commission, whose collective wisdom it reflects. Their Report, bringing prickly issues into the open, offers a valuable resource toward achieving a better understanding of the totality of alcohol problems.

Yet the Report is deficient in overlooking the role and contributions of the church in a constructive attack on the complex maze of alcohol problems. We believe that church members, studying the issues together under auspices of their church, can become a powerful influence for salutary action on alcohol problems.

This booklet has been prepared in order (1) to highlight various alcohol problems requiring corrective action, (2) to offer a basic viewpoint against which analyses and recommendations can be evaluated, (3) to stimulate among church members an informed thinking and responsible discussion on alcohol problems, (4) to propose courses of action we believe merit careful consideration, and (5) to demonstrate the concerns of the church for constructive efforts not only to assist the victims of alcohol but even more to prevent the growth of alcohol problems.

The basic ideas and viewpoint of this booklet are the product of a panel of resource persons enlisted by the Commission on Research and Social Action: Chaplain Gordon R. Grimm, of Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, Coordinator of Pastoral Care and Director of Clinical Pastoral Education, Hazelden Foundation, Center City, Minnesota; the Rev. Philip L. Hansen, Pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church, White Bear Lake, Minnesota, Clergy Consultant to Hazelden Foundation, and Chairman of the Minnesota Commission on Alcohol Problems; and the Rev. John E. Keller, Chaplain, Alcoholism Treatment Center, Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge, Illinois. Primary authorship of the text was by the undersigned.

The Commission on Research and Social Action is pleased to offer this publication as a means of clarifying issues, offering observations, stimulating thinking, and promoting informed discussion on a topic laden with emotional content. It is intended for study and resource purposes.

Carl F. Reuss, Executive Director
Commission on Research and Social Action
April 1968

I. A TIME FOR REAPPRAISAL

A major shift in social attitudes and policies is required to match the prevalence, the persistency, the complexity, and the interrelatedness of alcohol problems. On this note the Cooperative Commission on the Study of Alcoholism closes Alcohol ProblemsA Report to the Nation (page 189).

A. Unity of Approach
Much earlier (pages 4-5) the Commission had declared its belief that It is unlikely that substantial progress can be made with problem drinkers until the broader questions of alcohol use have been dealt with. Drinking, attitudes toward drinking, and social controls over drinking are interrelated. This the Commission reflects in its definition of an alcohol problem as referring

both to any controversy or disagreement about beverage alcohol use or non-use, and to any drinking behavior that is defined or experienced as a problem. Thus it includes both the difficulties that persons get into by drinking, and society's efforts to cope with these difficulties (page 4).

B. Reason, Not Rigidities
In this spirit the time has come for the churches to help their members see alcohol problems as a whole rather than as separated pieces, as one rather than in bits. It is time for churches to shift the discussion of alcohol problems out of the realm of dogmatic rigidities into the openness of Christian freedom and responsibility. It is time to insist that the community support and protect the person who chooses to abstain from alcoholic beverages. It is time to say that if an abstainer is not free to drink, he is not free (unless he be a recovering alcoholic); if a drinker is not free to abstain, he is not free.

The time has come for Americans to apply reason, prudence, and pragmatic judgment in coming to grips with the alcohol problems that beset the nation. It no longer is helpful to speak of drinking, per se, as right or wrong, nor of temperance or moderation in drinking. It is necessary to ask, rather, how the use or non-use of alcoholic beverages fits both into individual integrity and into current American culture. It is necessary to identify those drinking practices which may be wholesome or unwholesome, healthy or unhealthy, appropriate or inappropriate. This open approach compels man to use his intellect, to evaluate data and hypotheses, to relate causes and consequences, to make prudential choices, and to develop pragmatic correctives for the problems he has defined. It rejects sweeping generalizations as it seeks to apply the rule of reason.

C. Some Areas of Agreement
This favorable climate for open discussion of alcohol problems, their prevention and their correction, is the product of earlier acrimonious battles between wets and drys. Certain similarities and convergences of concern among the contending forces now are evident. Among the many areas of agreement we cite these:

D. Some Areas Causing Friction
Despite such impressive evidence of trends toward consensus, many areas of difficulty remain. Frictions result. There is in American society a basic ambiguity, a deep-rooted ambivalence, regarding alcohol and its use. Persons of intense convictions on one side often are unable to communicate with equally intense persons on the other side, since neither really hears what the other is saying. Each prefers to be his own expert, rejecting facts which refute his own preconceptions.

American culture has not yet integrated into one consistent pattern the heterogeneous attitudes and practices involving alcohol which its immigrants brought from their respective cultural heritages. Contradictory patterns survived side-by-side, raising doubts and causing confusion as to appropriate actions. America is having to call into question both its drinking culture and its abstinence culture

The ferment of controversy should lead, hopefully, to a clarifying resolution of the issues and to constructive action to correct or prevent alcohol problems. In this respect the friction points, wisely handled, can effect substantial progress toward overcoming alcohol problems.

II. THE SWEEP AND COMPLEXITY OF ALCOHOL PROBLEMS

Alcohol problems have invaded virtually every area of social life. Individual lives may be demoralized or ruined. Families feel the disruptive impact. Business and industry suffer from absenteeism, accidents, and impaired functioning of workers. Streets and highways are bloodied from alcohol-related accidents. Police blotters and court records are docketed with cases of alcohol-law violations. Health and medical specialists fear an inundation if they give alcohol victims the quality of care the heavy incidence of alcoholism as a major public health problem would warrant. Welfare agencies share the financial brunt of broken families and unemployed wage earners. Churches receive calls for not only spiritual counsel but also material assistance to the immediate victims of alcohol and their families. Public and voluntary educational agencies seek to combat ignorance and misinformation about alcohol.

It is not our intention to buttress these widely-recognized observations with statistics. Rather, we prefer to identify a number of major problem areas associated with the use of alcohol.

A. Levels of Problem Drinking
1. Problem Drinking. Because of its anesthetic effects alcohol is a widely-used refuge for the emotionally maladjusted, the insecure, unstable, or upset person, a tool of escape for those to whom the pressures and demands of life seem unmanageable. For such persons alcohol can be a means for avoiding or evading problems instead of coping with them head-on and effecting workable solutions.

Meaningful discussions of alcohol problems need to distinguish among the various levels and intensities of drinking, the attitudes and expectations which sanction or oppose drinking, and the effects of drinking upon others than the drinker. For, there are many problems associated with drinking which are not problem drinking, per se.

Depending on circumstances, attitudes, and effects, any drinking may be problem drinking. The driver under the influence of alcohol, whether or not he becomes involved in an accident, the high school gang on a rowdy drinking binge, the couple who at a drinking party become intoxicated and conceive a child outside of marriage, have all been involved in problem drinking. The man who drinks one can of a six-pack of beer on a hot summer afternoon, knowing his wife totally disapproves of any alcohol, is engaged in problem drinking.

2. The Problem Drinker. The Cooperative Commission Report defines problem drinking as a repetitive use of beverage alcohol causing physical, psychological, or social harm to the drinker or to others (pages 37-38). This definition, as the Commission notes, stresses interference with functioning rather than any specific drinking behavior, amount or frequency.

A person so caught up in problem drinking is, we believe, a problem drinker. He is likely to be in need of specialized care and treatment. Essential to effective treatment of such a problem drinker is an accurate diagnosis of the probable causes of his drinking behavior and a shrewd evaluation of his personality and temperament. Only as this person can be enabled to cope with his several underlying problems is it likely that his drinking will cease to be a problem.

3. The Alcoholic. Alcoholism, the Cooperative Commission agrees, may rather inadequately be defined as a condition in which an individual has lost control over his alcohol intake (emphasis added) in the sense that he is consistently unable to refrain from drinking or to stop drinking before getting intoxicated (page 39). Summarizing its view of alcoholism, the Cooperative Commission says:

Alcoholism then is considered an `illness' in the light of a comprehensive health view which includes an awareness of: (1) the multiplicity of causal factors; (2) the probable existence of many different courses of development (rather than a single course of development); and (3) the need to utilize a variety of treatment and preventive approaches, non-medical as well as medical (page 45).

A person needs to wonder about his probable alcoholism when he: drinks to escape troubles or worries, begins to feel guilty over his drinking and finds himself sneaking drinks, feels uncomfortable unless he has had a drink, suffers memory black-outs, finds himself drinking alone, changes his drinking companions, often drinks to intoxication, and wants or needs a morning drink.

In working with a person who is an alcoholic, whether he be man or woman, one of the most difficult tasks is to get him to recognize and to accept the fact that he has lost control over his drinking. He must be made to see that he now has a progressively deteriorating illness which needs treatment. The immediate focus for the alcoholic now needs to be on the illness of alcoholism rather than on the earlier underlying problems. Inherent in this understanding is the realization by the alcoholic that outside help is needed to arrest and adequately treat his illness.

B. Drinking and the Adolescent
A highly controversial section of the Cooperative Commission Report recommends that a program for prevention of alcohol problems would assist young people to adapt themselves realistically to a predominantly `drinking' society (pages 148-152). Though it would prefer to eliminate all age restrictions, the Commission advocates at least lowering the minimum age for the purchase of alcohol to a consistent 18 years, rather than the present patchwork pattern across the United States. It calls for eliminating the hypocrisy which characterizes much of the current manner of dealing with teen-age drinking. It advocates that models for sanctioned and acceptable drinking be established on college campuses, though it says there should be no pressure to drink, and abstinence should be respected (page 150). The Commission observes that:

The college years provide an excellent opportunity for students to engage in formal and informal discussion about alcohol use and abuse and to apply their creative intelligence to this problem. If colleges can become places for enlightened learning about alcohol and drinking, considerable progress will have been made toward creating better and less damaging drinking patterns (page 150).

The Commission believes that home, church, school and peer group settings should offer opportunity for teen-agers to learn about alcohol. It favors integrating drinking into other learning activities, thus removing drinking from center stage, but keeping it under adult supervision. Alcohol should be incidental to the primary activity; no pressure should be exerted to drink. Prohibitions against excessive or inappropriate drinking should be clearly understood and effectively enforced. (See page 151.)

The reason for this position is reflected in an earlier paragraph:

Driving cars, smoking, and holding a job are all aspects of adult roles. For many youngsters drinking also represents an effort to assume adult roles. Some adolescents, of course, do drink to `experiment,' to see what it feels like, but youthful drinking is often not just a rebellious act; it is also an effort to participate in adult behavior patterns. Social meanings rather than pharmacological effects are probably the key reason for most teenage drinking (page 149).

Regardless of one's personal views on the specifics, the Commission has highlighted a critical issue. How can our youth best be prepared to make responsible decisions concerning appropriate or inappropriate abstinence, appropriate or inappropriate drinking behavior and practices?

C. Drinking and Driving
Numerous research projects have established a close relationship between an automobile driver under the influence of alcohol and the likelihood of his involvement in a serious or fatal accident. The evidence appears incontrovertible.

European countries, especially Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries, have taken firm and decisive action to discourage a person from driving when he has recently imbibed alcohol. Drinking before driving is seen as inappropriate, harmful, and dangerous drinking behavior. Penalties are swift and sure. Hosts refrain from serving alcohol to the driver; in every group which plans on returning by auto one member must avoid alcohol so that he can drive. Or, the group must return by taxi, bus, or trolley.

Public opinion in America does not yet sanction such decisive action against drinking prior to driving. Convictions are difficult to obtain, especially in a jury trial. Perhaps jurors feel that there, save for the grace of God, sit I as the accused. Nevertheless, decisive action is required to attack and control the problem of the person who drinks, then drives. He is a danger to himself and to anyone he chances to meet.

D. Alcohol, the Police, Courts, and Jails
Arrests for offenses against alcohol laws account for virtually half of all arrests made by the police. Many of these are of the same person, again and again in a year, for public drunkenness. The jail may be the only public place in the community where the victim can sleep off his drunk. The jail serves as a place of protection from the elements but not as a place for treatment or rehabilitation.

Acceptance of the concept of alcoholism as an illness has practical implications for the entire complex of police, courts, and correctional institutions. Communities now must make provisions other than jails and workhouses for dealing with chronic alcoholics. Chronic drunkenness no longer can be regarded as a crime to be punished. It must be regarded as an illness, the victim to be cared for, treated, and restored to health if possible. The consequence is that communities must provide, or have access to, detoxification centers for the care and treatment of chronic alcoholics. Major capital investments for building such facilities and expanded funds to maintain these facilities clearly are indicated as a necessity across the entire U.S.A.

Through such a treatment approach court dockets can be cleared of many cases which at best receive only a perfunctory hearing. The movement will be from judgmental to compassionate intervention in behalf both of the person and the community.

Whether mandatory, and therefore involuntary, treatment should be imposed upon chronic alcoholics is a question deserving careful discussion. Both civil liberties and the probable effectiveness of treatment are involved. Yet, the community desires protection against chronic and public drunkenness.

E. Treatment and Rehabilitative Services
Two significant chapters of the Commission Report deal, respectively, with Current Alcoholism Treatment Services and Proposals for Improving Alcoholism Treatment Services (pages 53-109). These merit careful consideration for the gaps, weaknesses, and contradictions they identify, and for the specific proposals they advance for overcoming the discrimination of many helping agencies against problem drinkers (page 86).

1. Gaps and Weaknesses. The Commission particularly indicts the narrow and segmented services typically provided, the lack of continuity in care from one agency to another, the isolation of specialized alcoholism services from other community helping agencies, and the bias in accepting for care and treatment primarily problem drinkers who are best motivated, best educated, and the most socially intact. The Commission itemizes and briefly characterizes the six principal settings in which care is provided for the acute consequences of excessive alcohol intake: (1) emergency rooms (and wards) of general hospitals; (2) psychiatric wards of general hospitals; (3) special detoxification facilities; (4) mental hospitals; (5) patients' homes or offices of private physicians; and (6) jails and police `lock-ups (page 57). The Report also analyzes the work of Alcoholics Anonymous, inpatient care in residential treatment centers, a variety of new and experimental methods and such transitional facilities as half-way houses and recovery homes, and outpatient help provided through various clinical facilities.

2. Proposals for Improvement. The gap between existing services for problem drinkers and the need for such services is extreme. Accordingly, the Commission recommends a variety of specific proposals which it states as follows:

These proposals require commitment, funds, and personnel. They involve a re-ordering of tasks and priorities in the care and treatment of problem drinkers and the victims of alcoholism. So major a series of proposals merits widespread and informed discussion.

F. Fostering Positive Systems of Values
1. Prevalence of a Drinking Culture. Drinking of alcoholic beverages is made to appear in American culture patterns as a symbol of prestige and status, a badge of success, the companion of gracious hospitality and genial fellowship. One who aspires to honors and recognition may be made to feel that alcoholic beverages are essential to his ambitions.

No longer is drinking in America confined to taverns, cocktail lounges, and special centers reserved for drinkers. It has moved into the open, for example, in restaurants, railroad club cars and airplane cabins, into pre-meeting mixers for business and professional groups, and into athletic and country clubs. Drinking also has moved into the home and family, bringing women into the circle of drinkers. Drinking at home while watching television programs and drinking with friends and guests at a personal or company-sponsored cocktail party have been accepted as normal social behavior.

Advocates of social drinking claim that alcohol promotes sociability, lowers the barriers of tension and anxiety between casual acquaintances, permits conversations that are freer and more relaxed, and smooths-over the irritating annoyances that so often jeopardize congenial and harmonious relations between persons.

Alcoholic beverages give personal pleasure and satisfaction to many persons. To them a drink or two at the end of a tense, grueling day does wonders in relaxing them, making them more tolerant and understanding of children, spouse, neighbors, and associates. They act on the conviction that alcohol is the safest, most readily available, tranquilizer known to man. For other persons wine or beer goes just right with their meal, or provides an enjoyable refreshment. In many religious traditions wine is a ceremonial or sacramental obligation.

2. Unhealthy Drinking Patterns. Despite the positives, there are many negative, unwholesome, and unhealthy attitudes and practices in American use of alcoholic beverages. To drink is to be seen as adult, mature, or emancipated. To drink deeply and to hold one's liquor is alleged to be a mark of virile masculinity. Liquor sometimes is plied upon, almost forced upon, guests who prefer non-alcoholic beverages. Drinking often is undertaken as an end in itself, apart from food or fellowship. Taverns and lounges may serve as an escape from food or fellowship. Taverns and lounges may serve as an escape from the barriers of isolation, loneliness, and emptiness which enclose so many single, unmarried, unhappily married, and older persons in a cold, impersonal, urban society.

Legal and social controls are a patchwork of confused, often indefensible, restrictions and restraints. They reflect ambiguous values, seeking variously to reduce the easy availability of alcoholic beverages, provide needed tax revenues from the sale of intoxicants, hide from public view the evils and suffering which stem from alcohol, assume that the victims of alcohol simply brought their plight onto themselves, minimize corporate responsibility for or complicity in alcohol problems, exercise pinch-penny frugality in any public funds for the care, treatment, and rehabilitation of the victims of alcohol, and to enforce laws with partiality and favoritism for the affluent, favored, and powerful persons of the community.

3. Guideposts for Suggested Changes. The Cooperative Commission recommends a series of four proposals to discourage harmful types of drinking and harmful attitudes toward drinking. The last of the four was the controversial proposal to assist young people to adapt themselves realistically to a predominantly `drinking' society. The Commission insists that its proposals are interrelated and need to be treated as an entity. Individually, it says, they would probably be ineffective and some might have undesirable consequences (page 138).

The first three propose to reduce the emotionalism associated with alcoholic beverages, clarify and emphasize the distinctions between acceptable drinking and unacceptable drinking, and discourage drinking for its own sake and encourage the integration of drinking with other activities. Each specific proposal is discussed in some detail and examples are given of ways of achieving the proposed objective (pages 138-147).

4. A Case for Abstinence. A key aspect of minimizing the emotionalism associated with alcoholic beverages is reducing the pressure to drink and generally making it more acceptable to be an abstainer or abstemious. So says the Cooperative Commission (page 142), recognizing that a case can be made for positive abstinence in a drinking culture. The decision must be a personal one, in light of one's training, experience, culture, conscience, and sense of accountability to God and neighbor.

Financial, cultural, and health considerations may come to the fore. Do the benefits from purchase and use of alcohol outweigh those from other possible uses to which those funds might be put? Are there medical reasons, psychological vulnerabilities, or cultural considerations which indicate the need for abstinence? What image will drinking or non-drinking project? What influence can positive abstinence exert upon persons not sure of their own position or convictions?

Indeed, there are times and situations where the compelling responsibility of a user of alcoholic beverages is to abstain. Freedom to drink entails also the discipline to abstain. And, there may be times and situations where the person who normally chooses to abstain should be free to drink an alcoholic beverage.

Many a person, in the full freedom of his Christian liberty, gladly chooses to abstain from alcoholic beverages. He is for the most part at peace with God, himself, and neighbor; he has made a good adjustment to the demands and responsibilities of life; he likes to be in full command of his faculties at all times; he has no need to be cast in other people's molds; and he finds zest and enjoyment in the many good things of life all around him.

III. APPROACHES TOWARD CURBING ALCOHOL PROBLEMS

Effective controls to curb the problems caused by alcohol extend far beyond the treatment and rehabilitation of alcoholics into many directions and require a variety of approaches. These include (1) research and fact-finding; (2) education and training of professional personnel; (3) dissemination of information to the general public; (4) shaping of attitudes and influencing of personal behavior; and (5) legislative and administrative measures.

A. Research Imperative
Facts, carefully established and accurately presented, are basic to any valid programs seeking to effect appropriate patterns of alcohol use. Research can become the medium through which the facts regarding alcohol problems can be established. Facts should be the foundation stones for effective action programs.

Provided they are properly evaluated for their reliability, and their known biases are taken into account, useful data can be obtained alike from organizations advocating abstinence and from trade associations in the alcoholic beverage field. Research institutes on alcohol problems and research projects by sociologists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, medical and public health scientists, and other specialists promise to yield an ever-growing body of knowledge pertinent to controlling the use and misuse of alcohol.

B. Professional Education
Once facts are established and sound theories and working hypotheses are developed, these need to be communicated to the specialists and practitioners who can make direct use of them in their work with people. Institutes, seminars, and short-courses in the fields of alcohol problems need to be developed for teachers, clergymen, doctors, nurses, lawyers, social workers, policemen, judges and prosecuting attorneys, personnel managers, and other persons whose work regularly brings them in contact with the victims of alcohol. The aim of such programs is to enable these persons to be more knowledgeable, compassionate, understanding, and effective in their own fields of service.

C. Public Information
The general public, too, needs information and education on the nature, uses, and misuse of alcohol and associated problems. In part this will come through required courses in the public schools, in part through the activities of national, state, and community councils and commissions on alcoholism, and in part through reliable informational materials in books, newspapers and magazines, radio and television, and motion pictures. It will be especially helpful as it identifies early symptoms of problem drinking, helps people to understand that most alcoholics are neighbors and not Skid Row dwellers, and leads to early treatment and correction of the difficulty. The general public needs to know that under adequate treatment there is real hope for recovery for the alcoholic.

D. Shaping of Attitudes
Facts about alcohol and its effects not only should be learned as information but also should be allowed to shape attitudes and to influence personal behavior. Public health and safety, personal well-being and the general welfare, the public interest, the protection of persons and the community against unwholesome and undesirable influences, and the responsible exercise of individual liberty, are all involved in the decisions and the behavior of people as they act upon their knowledge about alcohol and its effects.

Guidelines for shaping personal attitudes, developing patterns of personal behavior regarding appropriate and inappropriate use of alcohol, and for exerting citizenship influence over public policy will recognize:

E. A More Humane Society
Additional attacks on problems resulting from the misuse of alcohol can be made through correcting bad social or mental health conditions associated with alcohol. Poor housing, inadequate recreational facilities, destructive use of leisure time, race and class conflicts, broken or unstable homes, unemployment, money-starved and dependency-breeding programs of public welfare, and the fostering of unrealistic and unattainable wants and desires in the minds of people call for broad, comprehensive programs of social action.

After citing approaches for improving mental health, the Commission observes that Another preventive approach lies in the creation of a better and more humane societyone in which individuals can realize their potential and which includes ample room for diversity. Such a society might well have fewer problem drinkers. The elimination of poverty, the provision of equal opportunity for all, the establishment of adequate preventive and curative medical services for the total population, the reduction of feelings of alienation, and the strengthening of one's sense of community are goals (which) should be forcefully pursued. . . (page 122-123).

F. Legal Controls
To promote a healthy atmosphere surrounding the use of alcohol, government must exercise legislative and administrative controls at least over the sale of alcoholic beverages. It may do this through a state or municipal monopoly, through a licensing system to control the number and location of retail outlets, or through a combination of these approaches. It may impose its regulations and controls uniformly within its jurisdiction, or it may permit localities by local option to ban the sale of alcoholic beverages in their community.

As minimum measures of legal control over the sale and public consumption of alcoholic beverages it would appear that government must regulate: (a) the location of retail outlets; (b) the eligibility of the vendor to receive a license, conditional on his good character and integrity; (c) the days on which and hours within which liquor may be sold; (d) prevention of sales to minors and persons visibly under the influence of alcohol; and (e) protection of the general public from rowdy and disorderly conduct and from dangerous or destructive behavior.

In addition to these basic and minimal measures of social control over alcoholic beverages government might explore more fully: (1) protection of the general public against automobile drivers under the influence of alcohol and enforcement of economic liability for their destructive actions; (2) ways of controlling the misleading, even phony, advertising of alcoholic beverages to prevent the inseparable identification of sociability with alcohol; (3) the subtle implications of the aura of darkness and secrecy so often found in public drinking places; (4) effects of official price-fixing for alcoholic beverages in comparison with entrepreneurial freedom to set selling prices; and (5) adequate appropriations to finance alcohol research, education and training, and to provide for the treatment and rehabilitation of alcoholics.

G. Coordinated Action
The task of effecting social controls over alcoholic beverages is so large that it requires the efforts both of voluntary and of governmental agencies. Members of the community, in their organizations and as citizens, need to develop positive, imaginative, constructive methods of dealing with alcohol-based problems.

Such governmental agencies as the legislatures and city councils, schools, public health and welfare departments, liquor control boards, commissions on alcoholism, the police, the courts, jails and penitentiaries, general and mental hospitals, and detoxification centers, have their distinctive functions to fulfill in combating the problems caused by alcohol. Voluntary agencies such as the mass communications media, family and child welfare agencies, councils on alcoholism and alcohol problems, mental health clinics, Alcoholics Anonymous, hospitals, the medical societies, and the churches, to name but a few, likewise have their own unique contributions to make. Employers and labor unions in business, trade, manufacturing, finance, etc., also have a significant role to play in any comprehensive attack on alcohol problems.

IV. ROLES FOR THE CHURCH

The Report of the Cooperative Commission on the Study of Alcoholism is notably lacking in attention to the possible role of the churches in working for the correction and prevention of alcohol problems in American society. To fill this gap we suggest a number of roles we believe are both appropriate and essential for the church to fill.

A. Interpreter of the Divine Will
The central task of the church is to proclaim the whole counsel of God. Its message is addressed to all men of every era, without regard to race, culture, national origin, personal attractiveness, prestige, or social standing.

The church seeks to discern and to communicate the meaning of God's revelation for the rapidly changing human situation in which it ministers. It endeavors to analyze the issues causing tension and the values in conflict, exposing the good and the evil, the sinful and the wholesome, that are in contention. It tries to evaluate the effects of current trends and problems upon persons individually, upon persons in their relationships with one another, and upon the ability of the various institutions and structures of society effectively to fulfill their special functions within the community.

All of this the church does in light of its understanding of the Gospel. It requires that men take care not to wrench Scripture out of context in order to make it support their prejudgments. It requires that the church remain free from any entangling alliances that would prevent the church from proclaiming that counsel and bearing that witness which it believes the Lord expects of His church.

B. Teacher of Needful Knowledge
Proclaiming the whole counsel of God demands of the church that it teach its members all that the Lord requires of them. Toward this end it utilizes the broad realm of educational processes and techniques suited to reaching children, youth, and adults.

With regard to alcohol problems, the church teaches that in both Old and New Testament times alcoholic beverages were used, even by heroes true to the Lord. It uses wine in honoring the Lord's Supper as the Sacrament of Holy Communion. At the same time, the church notes that voluntary abstinence is a Biblical practice personally chosen in faith and freedom, out of respect for offices held and on grounds of prudence and concern for others.

Scripture consistently and in strong terms denounces drunkenness and consistently warns of the dangers involved in excessive use of alcohol. It suggests that drunkenness, in which state the person has abused and lost control of his body, makes a mockery of the image of God in which man is created.

C. Fosterer of Fellowship
The Communion of Saints is a concept rich in meaning for Christians beset by tensions, tumults, and doubts which they can not fully understand and for which they need help greater than their own powers can supply. To know of the sympathetic understanding and the unfailing support of Christian brethren can provide invaluable encouragement and strength to persons in difficulty. Living as members of the family of God, in freedom and responsibility, they find companionship and power. They also discover that though this fellowship does not accept or condone wayward behavior, it does indeed accept the person.

D. Provider of Pastoral Care
The church's love and compassion compel its pastoral concern for persons in any form of distress. Its pastors are ready to include problem drinkers, alcoholics, and their families, in the pastoral ministry, care, and counsel which they provide. Pastors can offer the spiritual counsel and treatment needed by a person likely to be afraid of himself, estranged from family and neighbors, emotionally distressed by the pressures of society, and alienated from God. Pastors see alcoholism and problem drinking as not only a medical but also a spiritual sickness. Skilled and compassionate pastoral care can become the channel through which man's extremity can be turned into a time for God's healing.

E. Instiller of Attitudes
When it is faithful to the fullness of its ministry, built upon the richness of its resources, the church is profoundly involved in instilling attitudes. It helps to foster a genuine understanding of the person for himself and in his relationships to God, to neighbor, to the social institutions of the community, and to the universe in which he lives. It helps to shape his attitudes of self acceptance, of forgiving and being forgiven, of cooperation and mutual interdependence, and of love and concern for those in need of justice, opportunity, peace, and freedom

Awareness of the implications of the second great commandment, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, obligates the Christian to work wisely and vigorously for community well-being. It causes him to work both to eliminate harmful conditions which cause hurt and distress and to support and to foster positive, wholesome, influences. (See Matt. 22:37-40, Rom. 13:8-10.) This principle is as true for alcohol-caused as for other problems. Dr. Martin Luther incorporated this positive approach into his explanations of the commandments in such terms as:

. . . honor, serve, obey, love, and esteem them;
. . . help and befriend him in every necessity of life;
. . . help him to improve and protect his income and property;
. . . be of service and help to him so that he may keep what is his.

F. Motivator of Services
The church calls its members to act with knowledge and conviction in their various roles and offices in the community. It expects them to make certain that the wisdoms and skills known to man for rendering healing and helping services actually are available to people needing these services. It motivates them to give of their time, energies, and funds to constructive community projects aimed at the correction or prevention of alcohol problems. It helps them to see that through such projects of service in the community the faith of the members bears its fruits of good works.

G. Opener of Pathways
Churches readily should make their facilities available to groups and activities engaged in the battle against alcohol problems. It seems particularly appropriate to offer lounge, kitchen, and meeting room facilities to local chapters of Alcoholics Anonymous. Churches also could develop sections in their libraries to include informational material on alcoholism, alcohol problems, etc., for use not only by members of the congregation but also by residents of its community. Having ready access to persons in leadership positions in the community, the churches have a splendid opportunity to serve as gatekeepers for admission of troubled and disturbed persons to those institutions and practitioners who can help them. As local circumstances indicate, resources permit, and their leadership warrants, churches may find it desirable to establish and operate critically needed facilities or services for the treatment, correction, or prevention of alcohol problems.

H. Influencer of Community Values
The church helps to build the tone and character of its community. It retains a continuing and constructively critical interest in the quality of public life. Its understanding of the dynamics of civic righteousness gives direction and content to the goals it espouses for incorporation into public policy. Its awareness of the inroads of sin and selfishness cause it periodically to call for reappraisal of tasks and priorities in light of changing times and changing needs.

Often the key persons in the community and in its several power structures are members of the church. By influencing, motivating, and calling them to account, the church often can shape the decisions they incorporate into corporate policies and actions.

Controls which regulate alcoholic beverages operate at three levels. One is the person's inner control of conscience, discipline, and judgment. This may forbid his drinking or permit him to drink, telling him when and where he may drink and when to stop. A second level is that of traditional practices, community customs, and social pressure. These unofficial controls may either discourage drinking, or may sanction and even encourage drinking under specific and ceremonial circumstances. The third level is that of legislation, prohibiting or controlling activities deemed to be dangerous for the community. The police power of the state gives force to the level of legal controls.

The church supports those informal social controls and those legal controls which curb and check the destructive excesses that alcohol can bring. At the same time the church rejects the closed-mind, doctrinaire panaceas that claim to solve all the problems of alcohol by some single-track attack. Realistic about man's possibilities and limitations, the church knows that there is no simple answer to alcoholic beverage controls. It gives its support to any well-grounded, practically realizable, impartially enforceable measures which promise to be effective in confining alcoholic beverages within prescribed, safe, and appropriate limits.

The church echoes the spirit of love for God and neighbor spoken by the scribe about whom Jesus said You are not far from the kingdom of God. (See Mark 12:28-34.) The affirmation which brought such strong commendation the scribe expressed in these words:

And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices (Mark 12:33).

V. FOR FURTHER READING

The following books provide treatment in greater depth of issues raised in this booklet. They are listed in relative order of priority for addition to the congregation's reading and reference library.

• Plaut, Thomas F. A.: Alcohol Problems: A Report to the Nation by the Cooperative Commission on the Study of Alcoholism. Oxford University Press, New York, 1967.

• North Conway Institute: Alcohol and the American Churches. North Conway Institute,
  8 Newbury Street, Boston, Mass. 02116, 1967.

• Keller, John E.: Ministering to Alcoholics. Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, 1966.

• Clinebell, Howard J., Jr.: Understanding and Counseling the Alcoholic (Revised and Enlarged Edition). Abingdon Press, New York, 1968.

• Mann, Marty: New Primer on Alcoholism. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1958.
  McCarthy, Raymond C. (Ed.): Alcohol Education for Classroom and Community. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1964.

Most states and metropolitan areas have both voluntary and governmental agencies dealing with alcohol problems. Contacts with your local council or state commission on alcohol problems should provide pertinent resource material for further study.