SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS as a church body have been spared one of the greatest scourges of our time—Alcoholism. While millions of others in virtually every country of the world are enmeshed in this tragedy, we as a people are free from its ravages.
In the United States alone there are some 6.5 million alcoholics, according to the National Council on Alcoholism. Other estimates, including that of the New York Journal of Medicine, put the figure as high as 9.5 million. "One out of every ten drinkers becomes an alcoholic," says the American Medical Association.
Nor is the real impact of drink limited to small sections of big cities usually referred to as skid row, the "street of forgotten men." Ninety of every hundred alcoholics are found in homes, in offices, in good communities across the country.
The over-all cost to persons, families, and neighborhoods can never be estimated. Alcoholism is regarded as America's fourth major public health problem, along with cancer, mental illness, and heart disease. Perhaps it is even higher in rank. In some countries it is No. I.
Obviously there is need for helping hands, many of them, ready and willing to aid a human being in trouble.
It is only through God's grace and His entrusting to us as a people a wonderful message of health that we have been spared these inroads of the results of intemperance.
Though we personally may not be involved in this kind of trouble, such freedom is certainly not for us to gloat over. We cannot sit back and let human beings by the millions sink into destruction.
"The conflict against this evil, which is destroying the image of God in man, must be vigorously maintained. The warfare is before us. No tame message will have influence now."—Temperance, p. 239.
Through the years our church has emphasized a message of temperance education to help prevent people from falling victims to alcohol and other dangerous habits. This approach is important, perhaps the most important.
However, work for the intemperate must not be neglected. "Missionary work does not consist merely of preaching. It includes personal labor for those who have abused their health and have placed themselves where they have not moral power to control their appetites and passions. These souls are to be labored for as those more favorably situated. Our world is full of suffering ones."—Evangelism, p. 265.
Judging by the law of averages, there are probably members of our own families or near neighbor or someone acou?inted with our church who is involved. These need help. They need a helping hand extended to them.
"Some will be found whose minds have been so long debased that they will never in this life become what under more favorable circumstances they might have been. But the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness may shine into the soul. . . . Christ is able to uplift the most sinful."—The Ministry of Healing, p. 169.
The General Conference Temperance Department along with its message of prevention is also developing methods of helping the intemperate. Listen magazine for October is a single-theme issue devoted to helping the alcoholic. Several conferences in North America are using this special issue in their fall visitation program.. This Listen contains among other things excellent suggestions on how to work with alcoholics, a graphic portrayal showing how alcoholism develops gradually in a person's life, a personal story of one person's finding God because a friend extended a helping hand, and tangible ideas on how to control weight healthfully.
Listen's cover is a beautiful painting of a layman with his Bible helping a man obviously having a problem with drink. He extends to the victim his helping hand in loving concern. In the background the painting shows Jesus Himself extending His hands in participation, interest, and blessing. Divine hands always are near to aid work for those in need.
Also the emphasis for World Temperance Sabbath on October 22 this year is on helping hands of the gospel, inviting our people to support actively and financially this phase of our temperance work. May we urge every pastor, every church elder, every worker to present effectively this invitation to our people on Temperance Sabbath.
"As we do our part faithfully, the Lord will bless our efforts to the saving of many precious souls."—Temperance, p. 251.