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I don't drink because I am an alcoholic. That is pretty simple. I agree with the Adventist teaching on abstainance. I think it goes very well with our health message. The National Association of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism report that 40% of people that use alcohol will deal with abuse at sometime during their lives. Approximately 35% of Americans do not drink at all and less than 50% drink on a regular basis. So obviously there are several reasons beyond religious for not drinking. Statistics actually show that alcoholics live longer even with the fact that alcohol-related illness kill off many them early in life. Those that it doesn't kill live so much longer that they offset those that die young. Personally, I think that is because alcohol provides the alcoholic an escape from the stress of life and stress is more deadly than alcohol is. Of course, there are better ways to deal with stress than intoxication but most people do not employ them. And while the alcoholic may have a stress-free escape, he or she normally creates a hell in the lives of those around him or her. Given the numbers we have, it is around 20% to 30% of the population that do drink without any abuse issues. The rest of the population either doesn't drink at all or deals with abuse issues sometime during their life to a varying degree. I don't understand those folks at all. These are people that drink but don't get drunk. These are the people that come home from work and drink just one beer - or maybe just half - and no more. I have friends like this. They put just enough liquor in their mixed drink to taste it and will complain if too much is added. When they do drink enough to get feeling a little tipsy, they percieve that feeling as a red light that it is time to stop drinking. It seems pretty clear that the Bible allowed the consumption of alcohol but let us not forget something about that era of history. They didn't have cars. What was the worst thing that would happen if someone got drunk? Well, I guess they might go to sleep naked.

Ted-sober: |10552 days Ted-sober: |28 years 10 mons 22 days AA has been my touchstone. Not the church. The church says "Don't do it." AA provides a path to sobriety. I've seen more honesty in AA than in church. There's no "church face" at AA. Saying in AA: "I went to church to save my soul. I came to AA to save my ***." My last drink was February 3, 1986, the day I was commissioned a police officer. Drinking and police work don't mix.

We each have an individual story to tell. If we are Christians, we may have a story of how God has led in our lives. Here is my story. It is true. I was 12 or 13 when I learned about accountability when my five year old sister and I went for a walk in the woods. We were behind our house in Carmel New York. My mother warned me there was a swamp with quicksand back there and not to get lost and I decided it would be fun to get a little bit lost. It is really hard to get a little bit lost and soon we were really lost and in the swamp. I was up ahead looking for quicksand- at least it would get me first, I reasoned morbidly- when I heard a stressed out little voice behind me. “Laura” she said, “Please don’t leave me.” I realized in that moment what I had done, endangering my sister whom I loved dearly on a whim, and I prayed. I had prayed before, the Now I lay me down to sleep type of prayer my aunt taught me during one of our annual trips to see my Dad’s family down South, but this prayer was special because I realized my own sinfulness and my need of God. It was a “Please get us out of this mess and I’ll serve you” prayer. And he did. I climbed another hummock of grass in the marshy swamp and heard a noise that sounded beautiful for the first and only time in my life. It was a car, and where there were cars, there must be a road, and where there was a road, there must be a way out of the swamp. I looked up ahead and saw a little hill we climbed. We were quiet on our way back to the house, my sister still afraid, me losing the sense of the prayer and promise to serve Him but not fully. Years later, it became a reality. Fast forward to my sophomore year in college when a classmate and I were driving to a junior high school for a social science project. I heard my name clearly yet quietly. It was winter, the windows were closed, the radio was off, and he hadn’t said anything. An hour later, in the noisy lunchroom at the junior high, I heard it again but reasoned someone had said my name and my ears picked it out of the din. He dropped me off in a nearby town where I had lunch and took the bus out to the highway leading to Grand Valley State. Everyone knew there was no bus from the city of Grand Rapids out to the school, and so they would pick up hitchhikers, not that it was a good idea. That day, I stuck my thumb out and someone I could neither see nor feel pushed my arm down. I was not fully a follower of the Lord, then, but I knew the voice of the Holy Spirit. In my mind, I asked if it was okay to hitchhike, and twice I received the impression No, but I stuck out my thumb and got a ride immediately the third time. Meanwhile, a red station wagon had gone by. That station wagon picked up two young women with their groceries at the light in Standale, where the road was four lanes wide, so probably would have picked me up if I had had my thumb out. It takes less time for 1 woman with no groceries to get in the car than 2 with groceries, so the station wagon would probably have been in front of the blue sedan in the other lane when the road narrowed. I was thinking about the unexplainable events that had just occurred when I heard my name again. I started to say something to the driver, who motioned to be quiet and look ahead. In front of us there was a terrible head on collision in the middle of occurring. Two students in a red convertible from Grand Valley were thrown from their vehicle and killed instantly. It was very bad. They had collided with the blue sedan. The woman who had been in the sedan was injured but conscious and walking around as blood ran in small rivulets down her face. She didn’t look good, but she would survive. If I had gotten in the station wagon it would have been in front of her car, and I would have been in the front seat without a seatbelt on- I never wore one back then- when the road narrowed. I would have gone through the windshield, and three people would have died that day, on that busy stretch of highway going out to Lake Michigan. I went home and prayed the payer of thankfulness, and asked God again that if He was really there He would help me to know and to serve Him. Soon after I purchased an ancient Bible in a Goodwill nearby, and treated the old book with reverence and awe as I learned the words of life. My cousin Pam and I were close to one another but did not know the Lord, and I know my Grandmother prayed for us. We both were converted that fall before she died at Thanksgiving. I felt the Spirit of God filling me as I lay in my bed and prayed the Lord’s prayer one night across the street from Lake Michigan. It was like my whole body was filled with light and for a little bit I did not need to breathe. After that I stopped reading the philosophy books I had been studying in college and started reading the Bible. Some were New Age and I could sense they had a kind of power, but it was the wrong kind. Others just did not have much meaning once I found the Lord. After I graduated from college I was fasting and praying for God to lead me. I had received a pamphlet that contained the chapter “The Invitation” that was a chapter from Desire of Ages and when I read it, I could sense that whoever wrote it knew the Lord like the disciple John did - my favorite Bible author. It was published at a Christian farm and health food community about an hour away and I was impressed to go there one Saturday. After I arrived, I sat down under a tree and in my mind I heard a voice “I’ve brought you here and I’ll be with you here and wherever I lead you, and I’ll tell you when to go.” Back then, they had one rule for determining whether someone could stay there, which was if they felt the Lord had led them, so I stayed. That afternoon I sat down in a reading room upstairs from their chapel and picked up the book Councils on Stewardship. It said that money from the sale of alcohol was ill-gotten gains and would not benefit the receiver. I had just gotten a part time job at a local tavern after graduation, but when I read that I decided never to go back and pick up my check. Later I went to pick up a check from an employment agency for working part time at Amway. I opened it on the way back and they had the exact amount they owed me in a computer generated check. In addition, they had a hand written check that was dated on my birthday, August first which was a Sunday, the day after I came to live with the Adventists and decided to not get the check from the bar. I mailed it back to them and told them they did not owe it to me, and they mailed it back and said they did, so I accepted it. I felt like the Lord was showing me that anything I gave up for Him, He would give back or provide for me. About that time I met a couple. The husband was from Hungary and his testimony influenced me deeply. He had walked through three international border crossings. The first, the guards found him, took his money, and let him go. The second, he prayed, and he was invisible to the guards even though he was in a customs building. And the third, the guards nodded and smiled to him and let him pass without papers, again in an international customs building. Even though his experiences were different than mine, I knew it was the Spirit of God guiding him as well. I stayed at the health ministry in Michigan about 9 months then volunteered in a Christian school for the handicapped in Tennessee for 14 months. I worked briefly selling religious literature in Pensacola Florida, where I was walking down a street one day and heard a voice in my mind “Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it.” I crossed the street to the door I had the impression about it and knocked. The woman who answered was a day sleeper and so was not going to invite me in, but I asked her for a glass of water, and she had me come in and sit down. I sold her several books, and a magazine on quitting smoking for her husband, who was there and nonparticipating, but did not object. After when I returned to deliver the books, she told me how surprised she was that her husband had not thrown me out, because he until recently had been connected with the Mafia. When I was 28 I became ill about the time I moved from Wildwood to New York. I knew moving there at that time was not God’s first choice for my life. Soon after moving there I started having symptoms of an illness I probably already had, a form of cancer called Hodgkin’s disease, in the lymph nodes. Before they knew what was the matter, they put me on a flight back to Wildwood where I had lived for years, and while waiting at the airport I prayed silently for a rainbow to show me everything would be alright. When I got up to Wildwood I stayed at one of the doctors’ houses and his daughter gave me a picture of a rainbow. When I told her this part of the story she gave me another one she had done for her parents. I felt like the Lord was telling me things would be alright, but not in an instantaneous miracle, but that he would use people. The women in the hydrotherapy department gave me fever treatments The hottest was a water temperature of 113 while they kept my head cold with ice packs and monitored my pulse. They did not put an ice pack on my heart because the biggest lymph node was between my lungs, and I requested no pack there. The hydrotherapist agreed as long as my pulse did not get over 120. It stopped at 116. My body temperature got up to 107.2 , and we saw shrinkage of the lymph node on my neck and my symptoms disappeared for almost a day. 107 is extremely hot, and I did not want any more treatments that hot. I thought of Jesus and what He was willing to go through for us. Usually when we have a really bad trial we cannot just say forget it and still have salvation. In this case, I could say no more hot fever treatments, and they would stop. But Jesus did not do that. He could have come down form the cross, but it would have cost us our salvation. Because I had the fever treatments first, I had chemotherapy but did not need radiation. Later I was able to fellowship and witness with other dear friends who had cancer because I understood what it was like. I used to love reading the newsletters from the New York Van Ministry and the Lord worked it out so I could work there for a year. We had many miracle stories there, and at times I helped to edit the newsletter. One time in Manhattan a transit cop with a gun came up to me on the street where we had a table of Adventist Christian literature in front of the blood pressure screening van and asked me “Do you think the world’s coming to an end soon?” I asked him what he thought. “A lot of people say it’s not.” "In Noah’s day they said it wasn’t going to rain,” I answered. “You’re right, they aren’t paying attention. The world is coming to an end soon.” I offered him a Great Controversy but at first he politely declined. "I know it already" he said. I thought he was a Seventh-day Adventist. I could tell he loved the Lord. "Oh? I asked. "Yes I'm a Jehoveh's Witness" he replied. " I started praying silently. " I had a friend who was a Jehoveh's Witness and he read this and he said he found out things he didn't know. " I didn't tell him my friend became a Seventh-day Adventist. "Okay" he said. "I read other things. I'll take it. I'll read it." Muslims also came asking for literature and wanting to know more about Christ. I remember one gas station attendant who had received a Steps to Christ from the driver on the blood pressure van another time. When he came by, he asked for more to share with his friends. The driver went inside the station for a minute and the attendant came around to my side of the car and asked me to not let him leave until he had given him more Steps to Christ for his friends. Another man came up to me on the street in Queens where we had the blood pressure van with a table of literature arranged in front of the van. "Why are you doing this?" he inquired kindly but hesitantly. " We are Seventh day Adventists," I replied, " We are here to teach people more about health and more about Jesus." "I am a Muslim," he said. "I would like to know more about Jesus. What would you suggest?" After leaving the Van Ministry I began taking prerequisites for a Master in Nutrition at Andrews. Even though I did well there and subsequently teaching nutrition for 10 years, after that finances sort of deteriorated, maybe to get me where I am now. I worked at a health ministry in Bakersfield for 10 years. One day I was feeling stressed and in a rush. I am learning not to rush into things when feeling like this. I took my foot off the gas while entering a big intersection at California Avenue and South H Street, while I wondered why I was doing this since I usually accelerated when crossing wide streets to keep from being caught when the light changed. That’s the last thing I remember until I woke up 45 minutes later and hurting all over. They had used the jaws of life to take my car door off after someone t-boned me in the driver’s door. I was in pain but my thinking was crystal clear and I was filled with peace. They had to take me to the level I trauma unit in the area and they did not even pause on the way in, after they ran tests on me one of the nurses told me how lucky I was. I knew it was more than luck. I was really thankful I did not have broken bones and it did not cause facial lacerations or any bleeding except a really big bruise on my leg. Later a friend who got the items out of the trunk of my totaled car said the guy at the shop said the front axle (and engine block probably) stopped the other car from coming deeper into mine and another 2 feet further back and… Makes me realize why I took my foot off the gas. A few years ago the Lord impressed me not to move to a town out in the country about an hour from where I lived and worked in Bakersfield, but I moved anyway. Long story short, I bought a house, the economy crashed, the house value went down, I got laid off and lost in both houses. But I always had all the material things I needed. After I got laid off, I was looking to rent a condo in Bakersfield because I figured I would need to eventually move. I woke up one morning and heard like a whisper in my ear saying " Go look at that condo you've been thinking of renting." So I went down and looked at the condo. They were willing to rent it to me but needed my bank statements. While I was eating lunch before going to the bank my best friend called and asked me if I could watch her elderly parents. She needed to take her daughter down to Bakersfield for classes and wait for her. I explained why I couldn't and she decided to drop her daughter off and get someone else to bring her back. After we talked, I was impressed I no longer needed to follow up on the condo. That Friday night we had vespers at her house. I started to talk about my puzzling experience with the condo when the man who drove her daughter home told what had happened. He kept trying to pull out to pass a truck on the freeway but could not move his arm to turn the steering wheel. Then a car passed them speeding going the wrong way on the freeway in the lane he would have turned into. My friend has poor night vision, and she could have been in a head on collision, but God had other plans. I always felt like some time I would like a pause in my life where I wasn’t doing anything too special but had time to have a deeper experience with God. In 2010 I got laid off from work due to the economy and since then while I haven’t needed anything a lot less money has been coming in from the types of things I have been doing. I never planned to be home helping Mom, but a few months ago when home on vacation I could see walking was getting harder for her and she needed more than occasional help. At times it has been very challenging in part because she does not believe and in some respects our values are really different Last week I took her to a nearby town. She was signing over her car title to me in order to save on insurance since I now drive for her. (She is 86) After taking the freeway back to the area we live in, we stopped at her long time mechanic for an oil change. I asked them to check the tires because I was unsure how old they were. I was assured they had plenty of tread, but I asked them to check them anyway. The oil change took a little longer than I expected, but when the man came to the waiting room to tell me my car was ready, he held up a 3 inch nail and told me it had been in our tire and the extra time was to patch the tire. So thankful we did not have a blowout or a flat on the freeway. I know our stories are still being written, but this is some of mine. I hope it may be a blessing to someone else.

My Lionel Train Set, actually My Brothers and mine. We still have it. At least I hope we do! LOL We trade off every so many years. I haven't seen it in a while! Hope its still running OK!!

You start the neatest threads! I wish you could get more response to them. I don't have anything particularly interesting to add here. The first thought I had about a gift was 40 years ago receiving a typewriter before going to college. I could probably have left the "40 years ago" out and people could have figured that out!

‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE JESUS CAME! Author Unknown ‘Twas the night before Advent and all through the house Not a person was praying, not one in the house. Bibles were left on the shelves without care No one expecting Jesus would come there. The children were dressing to crawl into bed, Not once ever kneeling or bowing a head. And Mom in her rocker with the babe on her lap Was watching the late show while I took a nap. When out of the East there arose such a clatter, I sprang to my feet to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash; Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. When what to my wondering eyes should appear But glorious angels proclaiming Jesus was here. With a light like the sun sending forth a bright ray I knew in a moment this must be the day! The light of His face made me cover my head It was Jesus, returning just like He had said. And though I possessed worldly wisdom and wealth, I cried when I saw Him in spite of myself. In the Book of Life which He held in His hand Was written the name of every saved man. He spoke not a word as He searched for my name; When He said, “It’s not here,” my head hung in shame. The people whose names had been written with love He gathered to take to His Father above. With those who were ready He rose without sound While all the rest were left standing around. I fell to my knees, but it was too late; I had waited too long and thus sealed my fate. I stood and I cried as they rose out of sight; Oh, if only, we had been ready tonight. In the words of this poem the meaning is clear, The coming of Jesus is drawing quite near. There’s only one life and when comes the last call We’ll find that the Bible was true after all!

Why is that the Adventist Church has lost its original progressive spirit? The full particpation of women in preaching, teaching and leadership in the Church was clearly evident from the very beginning of the Advent Movement. After the death of EGW it seems we began a slide into conservative fundamentalism and slowly relegated women to traditional roles only, until the 1970's. The opportunity was ripe then to regain our original footing on this issue, but it seems that conservative fundamentalism had become so deeply entrenched that the opportunity was squandered, forcing us into another 40 years of wandering in the wilderness of doubt and resistance to the idea. We have spent decades dithering over this. We stand on the banks of the river. Will we be able to cross over, or will our fears force us backward once again?

Joe: To all of your questions, YES. I consider myself to be a "middle of the road" SDA, in part because I am a mixture of conservative and liberal viewpoints. That is true for both my religious and political//social viewpoints. IOW, a conservative religious perspective does not ipso facto translate to a a conservative political/social perspective. NOTE: This should all be considered in context. My so-called liberal religious views would in the overall religious climate be considered quite conservative.

I remember the first time I tasted beer. I was in the first grade. After I would go to my sister's daycare mother's house (where we stayed until our parents got us in the evening). Now my daycare mom's husband used to smoke and drink. He didn't work much. Their bin in the kitchen was always full of beer bottles. So, one day I became curious. I wanted to know how it tasted because he really liked it. I mean he really liked it based on the amount of beer bottles in the bin every day. Therefore, beer must be good. So, I scratched in the bin when no one was around, found a beer bottle with a little beer in and took a sip. It was the worst tasting beverage that ever crossed my lips. I could rinse my mouth out enough and vowed to never drink beer again. Later I learned from Patrick Holford that our first reaction to food is usually an indication to their goodness. (Obviously there are exceptions to this rule of thumb, like the Hunter's alcoholic apple cider my late uncle used to share with me and his grandson round about that time in my life.) And the other reason I don't drink alcohol is a matter of integrity. How can I claim to be a member of a church that is clearly against the consumption of alcohol and yet drink a bit of it in private? Also how would I be able to reconcile my belief that EG White is a true prophet with my adherence to a practice she condemns in her "official" writings?

I just don't drink it. It's not even tempting most of the time. I've never really drank it, although I've tasted it. I have had it in cooking though and cough syrup. I suppose that it does have something to do with how I was raised hearing that the Bible tells us to be sober and avoid strong drink, but I've also grown up and seen things...some of the things that alcohol does to a family. Maybe not even drinking it, but just it being there. But why should it be tempting? I mean, it's bitter and nasty and smells gross. I like to drink sparkling grape juice and sweet apple cider [i think I did have fermented apple cider once, and we didn't know it was fermented until we drank it, but I didn't know the difference, except that it was really bitter, until one of my parents commented on it], and I'll drink them in one of those fancy glasses, and lemonade too. Who needs alcohol?

There were a couple ways to preserve grape juice that I read about, one is that the Romans incorporated sulfur as a preservative. The grapes were also dried into raisins and rehydrated with water to make "wine" that was acceptable to be used in temple services. They had honey, too, which doesn't spoil. If ancient peoples added that to juice I imagine that could have a preserving action. They also dehydrated the juice down to a syrup and saved that to be used later. Fermenting was only one way to preserving their grape juice.

LHC, the water here recently won recognition as being the best water in the state. It certainly tastes very good.

I did not grow up in the SDA church, but from a different denomination. They taught that it was OK to eat unclean foods and drink alcohol. My Dad would have 1 strong drink every night before bed. I however drank more than that in high school, then the Navy, then as a productive member of society. I see drinking alcohol as a very selfish act, when you drink it, you are thinking only about yourself. In no way does it help someone else when you are drinking it. I then started to attend (not join) the Adventist church. Within 3 weeks I believe I stopped or decided to stop drinking alcohol. Thing is that no one told me I should quit except the Holy Spirit, and he was very convincing. I now tell people that it was probably the best thing I have ever done. I now notice people who call themselves Christian, saying that smoking dope is OK because God made it, so it must be OK. Which is the same reasoning they make for eating unclean food and drinking alcohol. I suppose the make the same assumptions reguarding how the dress (or lack of dressing at all).

I tried. I do not like the feeling. Out of control type of feeling. Similar to taking narcotic pain killer such as Vicodin. Not for me!

Amen I do not drink because I choose to follow what my Lord and Saviour would do. And after that I would choose not to because of what I have seen it do to people personally. Everyone has freewill to make the choices they do in life. What a shame it will be when our Lord and Saviour comes in the clouds to take His children home to be with Him and the Heavenly family forever, only to find out that we will not be "going up" to meet Him in the air because we chose to believe that drinking just a small amount is ok. Or have kept on doing anything that would separate us from Jesus. Ava

There is a strong misconception here that Christ drank alcohol. This is not the teaching of the Adventist church or the Bible. Did the same God who inspired the words of Solomon ("wine is a mocker"), create more posion for a wedding party? Did the same God who commanded Hannah and Samson to never so much as taste strong drink imbibe it Himself? Did the same God who refused alcohol while dying on a cross accept it at a party? The fate of every human being depended on Christ's perfect obedience to the law. Yet some here teach that He decided to risk falling into sin by loosening His inhibitions through alcohol. That sounds like slander which when speaking of God is actually blasphemy.