Overheard in Recovery: When Shall I Awake

Someone recently told me about this passage fromProverbs 23:29ff. If ever there was a scripture passage that describes the alcoholic pattern, cycle, and life, it is this. Who says the Bible is outdated....

29 Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
Who has strife? Who has complaining?
Who has wounds without cause?
Who has redness of eyes?

30 Those who linger late over wine,
those who keep trying mixed wines.

31 Do not look at wine when it is red,
when it sparkles in the cup
and goes down smoothly.

32 At the last it bites like a serpent,
and stings like an adder.

33 Your eyes will see strange things,
and your mind utter perverse things.

34 You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
like one who lies on the top of a mast.

35 “They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt;
they beat me, but I did not feel it.
When shall I awake?
I will seek another drink.”

And in spite of it all the closing is dead on. It is the powerlessness of the alcoholic heard loud and clear in that age-old question and just as old answer.

I will see another drink!