Drunkenness and the filling of the Spirit.

Thursday February 9, 2023

What happens once that vodka cranberry works its way through your bloodstream and hits the control center behind your eyes?

We hear many different things about how alcohol affects the brain and body, most notably that it is a depressant.  That's only part of the story. Alcohol is a depressant, but it's also an indirect stimulant, and plays a few other roles that might surprise you.

Alcohol directly affects brain chemistry by altering levels of neurotransmitters -- the chemical messengers that transmit the signals throughout the body that control thought processes, behavior and emotion.  Alcohol affects both "excitatory" neurotransmitters and "inhibitory" neurotransmitters.

An example of an excitatory neurotransmitter is glutamate, which would normally increase brain activity and energy levels. Alcohol suppresses the release of glutamate, resulting in a slowdown along your brain's highways.

An example of an inhibitory neurotransmitter is GABA, which reduces energy levels and calms everything down.  Drugs like Xanax and Valium (and other benzodiazopenes) increase GABA production in the brain, resulting in sedation. Alcohol does the same thing by increasing the effects of GABA. This, by the way, is one reason you don't want to drink alcohol while taking benzodiazopenes; the effects will be amplified, and that can slow your heart rate and respiratory system down to dangerous levels.

So what we just discussed accounts for the depressant effects of alcohol: it suppresses the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate and increases the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA. What this means for you is that your thought, speech and movements are slowed down, and the more you drink the more of these effects you'll feel (hence the stumbling around, falling over chairs and other clumsy things drunk people do).

But here's the twist [pun]: alcohol also increases the release of dopamine in your brain's "reward center." The reward center is the same combination of brain areas (particularly the ventral striatum) that are affected by virtually all pleasurable activity, including everything from hanging out with friends, going on vacation, getting a big bonus at work, ingesting drugs (like cocaine and crystal meth), and drinking alcohol.

By jacking up dopamine levels in your brain, alcohol tricks you into thinking that it's actually making you feel great (or maybe just better, if you are drinking to get over something emotionally difficult).  The effect is that you keep drinking to get more dopamine release, but at the same time you're altering other brain chemicals that are enhancing feelings of depression.

Research suggests that alcohol's affect on dopamine is more significant for men than women, which may account for men drinking more than women on average. According to results from the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), alcoholism affects men more than women: About 10 percent of men, compared to 3 to 5 percent of women, become alcoholics over the course of their lifetime.

Over time, with more drinking, the dopamine effect diminishes until it's almost nonexistent. But at this stage, a drinker is often "hooked" on the feeling of dopamine release in the reward center, even though they're no longer getting it.  Once a compulsive need to go back again and again for that release is established, addiction takes hold.  The length of time it takes for this to happen is case-specific; some people have a genetic propensity for alcoholism and for them it will take very little time, while for others it may take several weeks or months.

I state this because we are dealing in this class with Paul’s command not to “get drunk with wine, which is excess,” and its connection [pun, neurotransmitter pun] to “be filled with the Spirit.”

Eph 5:18

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.

We can dismiss immediately that he is merely dealing with the problem of drunkenness or excessive drinking. If someone doesn’t drink, are they filled with the Holy Spirit?

One of the reasons Paul mentions drunkenness must be that it was an issue that was characteristic of life at the time. Paul tells the Corinthians not to eat with a “so-called brother” who was a drunkard. In Romans Paul writes that we should put on the Lord and behave properly, not in carousing and drunkenness. Twice Paul writes that drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God. All believers should take these to heart, for drunkenness, as well as all sins, are not unique to the past.

In a survey done in 2019 in America, 25.8 percent of people 18 and older admitted to binge drinking in the last month. It’s more prevalent in men than in women. In the world, in 2016, 5.3% (3 million) deaths were attributed to alcohol. I haven’t met a family that has not been touched in some way by tragedy related to it.

But Paul, rather than trying to stop the plague of it all, is appealing to the change that has happened to believers in Christ.

All believers in Christ are indwelt by the Spirit. They have a new life that is altogether different.

And something else, Paul is also drawing some similarities. Certain ones in the society desired drunkenness for the reason of its affect on their mind and nervous system, but Paul offers a better way.

Alcohol is a depressant. “But, if it is so,” someone might say, “then why do I feel so alive when I’m drunk?” The sadness of depression is an after effect, but what so many miss is that at the beginning of drunkenness, something is depressed.

It depresses the highest centers of the brain. They are the first to be affected. These centers control everything that gives man self-control, wisdom, understanding, discrimination, judgment, balance, and the power to assess everything; in other words, everything that makes a man behave at his very best and highest. The better a man’s control, the better man he is. He who controls his feelings and moods and states and passions is obviously better than someone who does not.

Hence the accompanying word - dissipation.

καὶ μὴ μεθύσκεσθε οἴνῳ, ἐν ᾧ ἐστιν ἀσωτία

asotia – wastefully, prodigally.

The root word is sozo, the word for save or deliver. The negative alpha in the front makes it unsaved or wasted. It can be translated as excess, not the amount of wine, but the excess of being. The word is the description of the son who demanded his inheritance and left his father – the prodigal son or asotia son. He wasted his substance. When we do this, we do not save, guard, or keep that which is good and right, we scatter it away and in the end we have nothing at all.

Alcohol is a depressant and the Christian life is not wasteful, but a productive life. We love the parable of the Prodigal Son because of his forgiving and loving father, but the way of wastefulness is quite the opposite of Christianity.

Christianity uses time to the maximum. Every day is the day the Lord has made and we work and do and serve and pray and learn as unto the Lord. Drunkenness wastes time completely; squanders it, can’t keep track of it. It squanders energy. The drunk does things that his sober self would not do. The drunkard throws away with both hands that which is precious in life – time, energy, people.

The Christian life is the exact opposite. The life of Christ preserves what is good and gives away only that which is a benefit to others. It builds up and adds. The Christian who is spiritual is always gaining – gaining knowledge, more Scripture, more understanding of God, a deeper and more rewarding prayer life – or as Paul writes, it makes us super rich. The prodigal throws all this away for more wine.

The Christian is a steward. He manages well the things that God has given him. The unfaithful steward, in Christ’s parable, gets drunk and beats his fellow slaves, not think the master is going to return soon. The spiritual Christian realizes that a solemn charges has been committed to him, and that he must carry it out, for he loves his Master and excitedly expects Him at any time.

The Holy Spirit gives us energy. The drunkard is exhausted the following day, after his escapade. The Spirit filled believer serves and works and is ready and excited to do the same the next day. We’ve probably heard of cases where missionaries or pastors get burned out. They get ministry exhaustion. The Holy Spirit puts power into us in all the will of God that we do.

Those not drunk do not automatically have these qualities of the Holy Spirit. Christianity is not the mere presence of morality.

So Paul thunders at us with the contradiction between the Spirit and drunkenness, and what the moralist plugs his ears when it is spoken, the similarities between the two. How could there be similarities? Because the Christian life is brand new and not at all from this world.

When drink gets excessive it becomes stimulating, exhilarating, and thrilling. This is why people become addicted to it and put up with the grave negative effects.

Christian living is stimulating, exhilarating, and thrilling, without the negative side effects, but with blessing beyond imagination.

For the filling of the Spirit, side effects will include love, joy, and peace, compassion, forgiveness, strength, virtue, love of God, kindness, etc. The Holy Spirit is truly a stimulant.

The spiritual Christian life is one of joy. Many turn to drinking because they are unhappy. When enough of the drink knocks out the higher areas of the brain, unhappiness gets dulled, but, as they come to know, they are only soaking themselves in a temporary dream and when they awaken they will be farther away from happiness.

The happiness of the Holy Spirit is even in the midst of trials and tribulations.

1Pe 1:6-9

In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, 7 so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 8 and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

1Pe 4:12-13

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; 13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.

Drunkards usually have boon companions. They’re pretty sure that they can’t have friends that don’t over imbibe like they do. But it is again a dulling of the higher functions of the brain that bring the two companions together, singing songs, saying nice things to each other.

Two or more people filled with the Spirit is truly the only way to have fellowship with true joy.

Eph 5:18-21

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; 20 always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; 21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

Spiritual Christians, fellowshipping in their kindred minds, talk together about the great deliverance and about new life, and the blessed hope that lies before them, talking about heaven as home, talking about the glory that is coming, happy together, facing problems together, helping one another, strengthening one another, stimulating one another.

Paul has given us insight into the eternal glories of the Christian life by comparing it to drunkenness by difference and similarity. It is not a life of merely not getting drunk, or not doing this or that (dancing, smoking, chewing, going where they do-ing). You can be clear on matters of morality at a human level and not be a Christian stimulated by the Holy Spirit.

The Christian stimulated by the Holy Spirit has a thrilling, exciting, life than no other type of person can know, and it is because his faith has chosen it and his decisions have chosen it, and the Holy Spirit made it happen by giving him the power and wisdom needed for it.

Christians often ask, “Which comes first, the filling of the Spirit and then I choose God’s will, or do I choose God will first and then get filled?” That is like asking which blade of the scissors is doing the cutting. They both go together. Don’t over complicate it. Just learn the life, choose the life by faith, make decisions for the life (i.e. trust and obey) and watch the Spirit work in you and through you. We cannot make ourselves happy. We can choose God’s life and wait for Him to fill us with joy. You won’t have to wait very long.