We shall investigate later the question whether the mind of the sage is upset by too much wine and commits follies like those of the toper; but meanwhile, if you wish to prove that a good man ought not to get drunk, why work it out by logic?
Show how base it is to pour down more liquor than one can carry, and not to know the capacity of one’s own stomach; show how often the drunkard does things which make him blush when he is sober; state that drunkenness is nothing but a condition of insanity purposely assumed.
Prolong the drunkard’s condition to several days; will you have any doubt about his madness? Even as it is, the madness is no less; it merely lasts a shorter time.
Think of Alexander of Macedon, who stabbed Clitus, his dearest and most loyal friend, at a banquet; after Alexander understood what he had done, he wished to die, and assuredly he ought to have died.
Drunkenness kindles and discloses every kind of vice, and removes the sense of shame that veils our evil undertakings. For more men abstain from forbidden actions because they are ashamed of sinning than because their inclinations are good. When the strength of wine has become too great and has gained control over the mind, every lurking evil comes forth from its hiding-place.
Drunkenness does not create vice, it merely brings it into view; at such times the lustful man does not wait even for the privacy of a bedroom, but without postponement gives free play to the demands of his passions; at such times the unchaste man proclaims and publishes his malady; at such times your cross-grained fellow does not restrain his tongue or his hand.
The haughty man increases his arrogance, the ruthless man his cruelty, the slanderer his spitefulness. Every vice is given free play and comes to the front.
Show how base it is to pour down more liquor than one can carry, and not to know the capacity of one’s own stomach; show how often the drunkard does things which make him blush when he is sober; state that drunkenness is nothing but a condition of insanity purposely assumed.
Prolong the drunkard’s condition to several days; will you have any doubt about his madness? Even as it is, the madness is no less; it merely lasts a shorter time.
Think of Alexander of Macedon, who stabbed Clitus, his dearest and most loyal friend, at a banquet; after Alexander understood what he had done, he wished to die, and assuredly he ought to have died.
Drunkenness kindles and discloses every kind of vice, and removes the sense of shame that veils our evil undertakings. For more men abstain from forbidden actions because they are ashamed of sinning than because their inclinations are good. When the strength of wine has become too great and has gained control over the mind, every lurking evil comes forth from its hiding-place.
Drunkenness does not create vice, it merely brings it into view; at such times the lustful man does not wait even for the privacy of a bedroom, but without postponement gives free play to the demands of his passions; at such times the unchaste man proclaims and publishes his malady; at such times your cross-grained fellow does not restrain his tongue or his hand.
The haughty man increases his arrogance, the ruthless man his cruelty, the slanderer his spitefulness. Every vice is given free play and comes to the front.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 83
I do not know if the ideal sage would abstain from drink, or if it would have no effect upon him, or if he could take it or leave it. I do know that a fool like me, who can barely stumble through the day, has no need of any book learning to teach him about the benefits of staying clean and sober. I wish I could say that no one ever warned me, but they most certainly did.
When the old-timers at the Twelve-Step meetings talk about an addiction being physical, mental, and spiritual, they are not asking you to engage in some refined metaphysics. It simply points to the fact that a disorder in one part will express itself in every other part, and we are kidding ourselves when we claim to have confined the problem to just one corner of our lives.
In my own case, a chemical reaction would feed my appetites, because a distortion had entered into my thinking, which ultimately turned my values upside-down. The desire for immediate gratification, which for me was for a sort of numbness, arose from the false judgment that I could not cope with pain; before too long, my body was in distress, my mind was clouded, and my soul could no longer stand on a moral foundation.
Seneca understood the harsh reality of what too many of us wish to ignore: the liquor and the drugs are just going to make us sicker and sicker, at every level of who we are. Intoxication, of any sort, weakens the flesh as an instrument of the spirit, and it cripples the spirit by distorting the power of reason. It is unfortunate if a man cannot lift his hand, but it is disastrous if a man cannot clearly order his thoughts, the power upon which all his other goods depend.
Here is the phrase that sticks in my head: “drunkenness is nothing but a condition of insanity purposely assumed.” Though it is not itself a state that creates the vices, it rather enables and magnifies all of our worst tendencies, divorcing our impulses from the guidance of a conscience. Where the mind is confused, there can be no understanding, and where the will is blinded, there can be no love. It is no exaggeration to say that I have thereby abandoned my very humanity.
It ceases to be a “bit of fun” when letting down my guard only brings out the worst in me. Without trying to sound like a killjoy, I think it fair to say that drunkenness has never improved my character, and so it has never made me any happier, oftentimes making me far more miserable than I was before. The appeal of an instant escape is an illusion, since neglect can never take the place of nurture.
Would Alexander have taken that first drink if he had known where it would lead him? Would I have so readily surrendered to my passions, or so swiftly spoken in anger, or so pathetically succumbed to despair, if I had merely made the effort to reflect upon my true nature? The monster can only pass over the threshold if I have first invited him to enter.
—Reflection written in 12/2013
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