AS A TEEN, I questioned why so many people saw social drinking as a normal and healthy part of life, while my parents, and Christian Scientists like us, didn't drink alcohol at all. I could clearly see the problem with heavy drinking or alcoholism, but I just couldn't see the problem with drinking moderately. For years I tried to understand why Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health, "The depraved appetite for alcoholic drinks, tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, is destroyed only by Mind's mastery of the body. This normal control is gained through divine strength and understanding" (p. 406).
In high school, I rebelled against what I considered an absolutist attitude that my parents had about abstaining from alcohol. Despite their disapproval, I drank with my friends at parties, and this caused a lot of problems for me with my parents. To me, drinking just wasn't a huge deal.
As an adult, I made up my mind that I would drink socially and moderately with my husband and friends, while continuing to search for a reason that I shouldn't drink at all. It seemed that people who chose not to drink didn't have any fewer problems than my friends and me. And yet I had so many friends who did drink and were at the same time wonderful people. So I just didn't see how not drinking could help me.
