Living a Sober Life: Orthodox Temperance Society
The Great Lent is the best time to get down
to the battle against passions. Sin, passion, vice, and addiction are related
concepts. Alcohol, drug, and gambling addictions are arguably the most
antisocial passions that change a person’s lifestyle rapidly and radically.
It has long been evident that dependency is
not just a healthcare problem. It is a spiritual problem, too. Luckily, the
Church has an effective treatment method grounded in the teachings of the Holy
Fathers. Thus, St Elisabeth Convent has organised the Orthodox Temperance
Society. Archpriest Eugene Pavelchuk supervised a similar organisation in
Hrodna for six years. Today, he puts his experience to use in our Convent, too.
– Father Eugene, could you please tell us what
the main idea behind the Orthodox Temperance Society is?
– The Orthodox Temperance Society in Hrodna was
established six years ago when I served in the Holy Protection Cathedral of
that city. Those who suffer from alcohol, drug, gambling, and other
dependencies, receive therapy based on the prescriptions of the Holy Fathers.
With the blessing of Archpriest Andrew Lemeshonok, the spiritual father of St
Elisabeth Convent, an Orthodox Temperance Society has been established in our
Convent, too.
Any
passion is first and foremost an illness of the soul, even if it is linked to
certain chemical substances. Alcohol and drugs are merely means of the
subjugation of one’s soul. An individual drinks alcohol not because he likes
its taste but because he likes the altered state of mind, the fake happiness
and imaginary joy that ensues. This is what passion means: it’s a spoof, a
devil’s trap.
You can
get rid of dependency only by changing your heart. You can break free only if
you stop loving vice and direct your steps to God. This road is incredibly
thorny and cumbersome. However, we have patristic instructions how to fight
passions; hence, we possess all the necessary tools and resources at hand. Of
course, it is achievable only with that person’s active engagement and with
God’s help. You cannot defeat sin without God and his grace.
The first
step towards recovery is to admit that you are ill and to recognise that you
cannot crush the dependency on your own. When you are humbled by your
powerlessness, you become humble before God. Let’s recall the parable of the
prodigal son. He enjoyed his life drinking wine and partying with harlots. As
long as he had the fake sensation of happiness, he was okay and did not want to
change anything. Only when, a son of a king that he was, he started herding
pigs in exchange for eating their food with them — it should be noted that even
this promise was broken: And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks
that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him (Luke 15:16) — did he finally
acknowledge his desperate situation. Only after hitting rock bottom the
prodigal son finally came to his senses and repented.
The devil
is a liar. He never gives anything for free to a human being. He just promises:
“You’ll have fun! Your life will be flashy!” In reality, the person’s life
turns grey, hollow, and disappointing.
The
purpose of the Temperance Society is to open up the way for a person to start
healing his soul. Our Society is the starting point which can spur one’s
improvement, provided that he is willing to participate in it. Being healed
does not mean “being able to drink like everyone else.” No! Being healed means
living a sober life with God, which is completely on a different level. As soon
as a person tastes a God-filled life, the direction of his life changes.
It’s a
long and challenging road but there’s no way around. The quick and dirty ways
that various organisations offer, are bogus. The devil also suggested a quick
and dirty way, didn’t he? As soon as you eat that fruit, you’ll become like God
(…in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil. Cf. Genesis 3:5). God had prepared a long and
rugged but the only possible path to becoming like God — the path of
self-discipline, humility, and submission. The Lord Jesus Christ did not assure
us that this road would be easy. He showed the way of carrying one’s own cross:
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and
follow me. (Matthew 16: 24). If someone promises to make a person free from
alcohol or drug abuse, he is a liar who leads that person astray…
– You say that the starting point for a person
to be healed is when he realises his dependency and his illness. What if
someone refuses to accept the fact of dependency? What can his relatives do?
What should they do to motivate their ill family member to start fighting his
addiction?
– One will admit that he is ill and make proper
conclusions only when he is completely disappointed in his passion. The disappointment
comes only when one feels the consequences of his sin. Passions attract people.
People like their passions because they have turned into habits. If one doesn’t
get hurt after falling, will he come to the right conclusions? No, he won’t.
God loves us much stronger than we love our own children. Nevertheless, he lets
us fall down, although he supports us invisibly to prevent us from being hurt
too badly. The Lord allows an individual to suffer precisely as much as he can
handle: If the suffering is too mild, the person won’t learn, but if it’s too
harsh, the person can become angry or restless. This is how the great God’s
love is made manifest.
As far as
the immediate family of the addicts are concerned, they face the tricky
challenge. They have to love the unfortunate person but do it the right way,
i.e., with a clear view of the situation. The most vital part of our work with
the addicts’ relatives is to help them to allow the sharp God’s love into their
hearts by knowing God and to extend this love to their relatives. The love that
they should learn to communicate is not the excessive love but the right kind
of love when you feel where you should let that person fall and not to
safeguard him, not to live his life for him. The point is not to help the
addict to get rid of his passion temporarily. The point is to help him to
change his soul, to help his heart to feel God, accept God’s love, which will
then set everything straight. It’s hardly possible for our human reasoning to
find the precise level of affection and engagement. It’s possible with God,
though.
Relatives
and friends of the addicts find the new reality of addiction hard to put up
with. They become infuriated with the sick family member. There are cases when
a woman goes to a mutual-aid group and then suddenly makes a disastrous
decision, “Why do I stand that husband for so long? I want a divorce!” And she
gets a divorce. Sure, if a man wastes a long time drinking heavily and clearly
does not want to change anything, his wife is entitled to a church divorce.
However, I am afraid of extreme actions like these… How much time should a
woman spend waiting patiently? Six months, a year, three, five years, a decade
— how do we find out? Right now, her husband doesn’t want to admit that he is
ill. Half a year later, God will open his heart. Then what? Sometimes the man
abandons his sin but his wife has been so frustrated and embittered that she
doesn’t want and cannot stay with him any longer. “I loathe you,” she says. Is
it a Christian approach? How do you explain the unbelieving husband is
sanctified by the wife (1 Cor. 7:14) then? It’s genuinely elusive. That’s why
dealing with the co-dependent is much harder than dealing with the dependent.
– Where can one go and who can one ask if one
wants to participate in the Temperance Society and start his way out of
addiction? Where and when do you meet?
– Our Temperance Society works with the addicts
systematically in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Fathers. We meet
twice a week. We read an Akathist to the Inexhaustible Chalice icon of the
Mother of God on Sundays at 6 PM in St John of Shanghai Church followed by a
meeting. Additionally, we meet for a friendly discussion in that church every
Thursday at 6.30 PM.
Of
course, we are in the very beginning of our journey. We have a lot to do
together. When the participants of our Society gain enough love to be able to
empathise with one another openly, the Society will transform into a real
community. Little by little we are getting closer to it. Recently, one of our
brothers had a breakdown. I said, “Dear brothers, let’s pray because one of our
brothers feels bad and it can be devastating.” All the brothers prayed
together, and the brother could feel it. He returned to our group saying,
“Forgive me brothers.” He was sincere. Gradually, God willing, we plan to reach
a new level where we will have the genuine Divine love among us.
Interview by Maria Kotova
March 2, 2018