Crying And Drinking Don't Help When Your Soul Gets a Boo-Boo

Life hurts, Sorry to break that to you, but it's the truth. Sometimes a Band-aide will do. Other times we need a complete shift in our view of reality. Solving problems is how God teaches us to grow spiritually.

M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled (https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/m-scott-peck/199678/)  has it right, I think. Consider this, as you think back to what made you start and continue drinking:

“Many aspects of the reality of the world and of our relationship to the world are painful to us. We can understand them only through effort and suffering. All of us, to a greater or lesser extent, attempt to avoid this effort and suffering. We ignore painful aspects of reality by thrusting certain unpleasant facts out of our awareness. In other words, we attempt to defend our consciousness, our awareness, against reality. We do this by a variety of means which psychiatrists call defense mechanisms.”

One defense mechanism is drinking or drugging. That’s how some of us choose to avoid effort and suffering. Sadly, according to Dr. Peck, there is no way to avoid suffering. He opens his book with the words, “Life is difficult.” The only solution is to buck up and deal with it. We can’t ignore problems or we never will evolve into the loving, healthy beings God intends us to be.

The key is to deal with problems of all shapes and sizes in a healthy, effective way. That doesn’t include alcohol.