It has come to my attention recently that a concern was raised about a couple of updates I put on Facebook – one asking for whisky recommendations, the other showing the recommendation I settled on after I purchased it. The context for the concern is that I’m one of the speakers at the Wesleyan youth camp in January and so there was the worry that I was promoting alcohol. I want to take an opportunity to address that concern.

Photo: David Monniaux. The cellar caves at the Grand Chartreuse Carthusian Monastery in the French Alps.

Firstly, I want to validate the concern. I know that for many of my readers there may be a tendency to belittle the fact that it was raised as an issue, but I’m glad it was raised.

I’m a Wesleyan Methodist Minister and there is a strong heritage of complete abstinence towards alcohol within Methodism and its related streams of the holiness movement, such as the Nazarenes and the Salvation Army. In many countries Wesleyan Ministers are not allowed to consume alcohol. This may seem overly restrictive to some, but it flows from the social awareness and concern that is a deeply rich part of our heritage. It comes from an awareness that holiness is not simply an internal attribute of the individual – a deeply personal thing that just involves them and God, but is something that engages the wider world around us. Wesleyan theology has a strong social concern and the belief that our faith is deeply connected to the wider story of justice. The movement of complete abstinence in relation to alcohol was/is a response to the ravages of alcohol in many communities and nations.

Let’s be very honest, alcohol has been hugely destructive. People have made poor choices with it that have led to so much societal fallout that it should be of real concern. One only has to take a drive around the center of the city that I live in, on a late Friday or Saturday night to see the problems, or to study the situations the police deal with on those nights where intoxication has been a driver for increased call-outs relating to domestic violence.

For the record, allow me to say that on this issue I support conservative political positions. I support raising the drinking age back to what it was when I was younger, enforcing that age, and I support reducing the alcohol limit for driving. On many issues, when it comes to politics I am socially liberal, but not this one.

My own early life and shaping was a product of alcoholism. My deceased father was an alcoholic. It wasn’t something that I had to grow up with in the home as he walked out on my mother and I when I was just a baby. Prior to leaving, one day in a drunken state he hit my mother. Alcohol had consumed his life at a young age and ruined it. When I met him in my late teens he was a man who had been wrecked by it and he couldn’t break his addiction. His body was ravaged (he was an artist who could no longer keep his hands still, so his art had suffered), his mind was distorted and his life was a mess. He couldn’t get by without consuming large amounts of the stuff most evenings. I ended up walking away from any relationship with him because it wasn’t healthy. He died a few years ago after having a stroke and while in recovery, being beaten by a blood clot. I have no doubt it was the result of years of too much alcohol. He left behind a number of women he had been in relationship with and many children to those different women. I am one of them. His life saddened me and it’s the life that formed the lens through which I have had to work out how I approach the issue.

All that to say I share the very real social concern over the issue that those before me in my faith tradition had and that many within that stream still do. Many have validly chosen complete abstinence from alcohol as their stance and statement in response to the issue and it’s a response I completely support. I have no time for the ridicule others offer towards that position. I also have little time or respect for Christians who hold up their drinking as some sort of cultural relevance and badge of being ‘cool’ as if it’s somehow better than those who choose not to touch alcohol at all because the latter is seen as out of touch. Drinking does not make you cool. I completely share the social concern of the members of my faith family who have chosen to not consume alcohol at all, I have just chosen a different way to respond to it.

During my teens I didn’t look much different from most New Zealand teenagers, I drank far too much on many occasions and often drank to get drunk. For me, addressing the issue began when I got serious about my faith. I was 20-21. It was around that time I chose to stop drinking. I went two years without touching  alcohol. I still went to the pubs with my friends on occasion and was the source of many conversations as I chose not to drink. It was a healthy time where I really had a chance to think about the issue and formulate my own place with it.

To cut a long story around my internal processing short, I got to a place where I didn’t want to be a product of my father in two ways, either by becoming an alcoholic myself or by being the total opposite purely in a reactionary away. When I decided to have a drink again it was from a position of not wanting the alcoholism of my father to define me. Who he was will always be a part of who I am and it has been significant in shaping my response to the issue but it doesn’t define me. I am neither an alcoholic who glorifies alcohol and nor am I someone who feels a need to push it away because of his life. For myself I’ve found a radical middle ground on the issue while still completely supporting those who avoid it altogether.

My response to the issue is to engage alcohol in a way where I savour it and enjoy it in moderate amounts and do my best to model that. I treat it as an artisan product that can be enjoyed as a normal part of life and even as a ‘treat.’ I have no time for the abuse of it and if I encountered someone who couldn’t enjoy it in moderation I would support them towards complete abstinence. Let me be clear, my position does not make it ok for you to get drunk.

Is my approach the best answer for all? No, but it is where I’ve got to. I enjoy quality ale and limit myself to one, or two at the most. I like good wine and enjoy a small amount of red wine. There are a few other types of drink I enjoy too, with one as a standout and it’s this one that led to the concern being raised.

I also like Single Malt Scotch Whisky (I don’t drink any other type of whisky). It’s this that helps drive home a story of redemption in my life, as strange as that might sound. My father is from Scotland. It’s a part of my heritage that I was unable to connect with properly until meeting my wonderful uncle (my father’s brother) and his amazing family in my early 20’s. Enjoying a sip of quality Single Malt Scotch from time to time (I savour a very small amount some evenings – literally a few sips) brings together that Scottish heritage, my family, the gaps that were there because of my father’s flight from us and it embodies my release from my father’s abuse of alcohol. I know this may sound strange to many, but it is part of my story of redemption. I internally give thanks to God each time I have a whisky and I pay homage to all the people who have played a part in the journey of helping to shape who I am – from my father, to my friends and family and all those who have intersected my life at some point. Having a whisky, for me, represents the fact that I am not imprisoned by anything – I have been set free.

When I publicly talk about alcohol in any way it is with all this in the background. In no way do I seek to promote alcohol, but I do seek, for those people for whom it will be helpful, to model an approach that treats the product as something that can be savoured and enjoyed without abusing it; that it can be a normal part of life without being turned into something we overuse or fear. Thus I won’t shy away from talking about it in public. Just as others in my faith family share a social concern that leads them to complete abstinence, so i share that social concern – I just have a different approach that has been born from much time wrestling with the issue. I’m proud to be part of a denomination that has room for both.