Greetings! In today’s class we shall learn where the root of intemperance is often found. Furthermore, we shall discuss how things that we put in our body can incite the use of liquor.

Don’t Raise Your Boy to Be a Drunkard

It is when we leave babyhood, and the child is made to share the diet of his elders, that  we most commonly enter the school of training for drunkenness. Of course this is equally true for adults and if you want the basic reason for our recent dive into liquor, go to the American table. Coffee, tea, hot sauces, spices, pepper, lots of ginger, mustard, vinegar, flesh foods, everything highly seasoned – what alimentary tract can harbor such a conglomeration, what blood receive its fever-forming products without being driven to the call for stimulants and narcotics? The irritants and poisons introduced by such a diet directly incite to the use of liquor.

True, some thousands, possibly millions, of good people daily swallow these things and still do not drink alcoholic liquors. They have built up by other means a moral barrier to the imbibing of alcohol, and so far their dislikes hold. But what a prodigality of moral power! You hear some of them say, ‘I like the taste of liquor, but I will not drink.’ They are having to draw upon their reserves of will, of moral strength (which might be put to constructive rather than to purely defense use) to resist an appetite they are constantly feeding. Most of them yield to the tobacco habit and so narcotize their bodies and create a stronger demand for alcohol. Whosoever resists the power of alcohol, yet daily feeds himself with the creators of thirst, is to be likened to a foolish man who builds high his dislikes to shut out the flood yet ever invites more floods to break them down. There is no necessity of a craving for alcohol, tobacco, or drugs. It is an unnatural craving. It can be bred out of the body by a correct, non stimulating diet. Better still in the child it can be absolutely prevented by a proper regimen.

But it is not alone through the use of condiments, drugging beverages and wrong foods that the tendency to stimulants is fostered. A diet deficient in the essential elements, or overbalanced in any one, creates conditions of unbalance and disease. Given a sufficient incentive or temptation, the individual with this deranged condition easily tips over into indulgence in surfeiting and drunkenness. An example is the inordinate use of sugar in many forms-piled upon breakfast cereals, stuffed in ice cream and candy, dished up in pastries. Refined sugar, whether in table form or confectionery, creates a hyperacid condition which invites stimulants; and indeed, sugar itself is quite capable, under certain not uncommon digestive conditions, of setting up a neat little distillery of its own within the body.

Upon this subject, Inspirations writes: “Our tables should bear only the most wholesome food, free from every irritating substance. The appetite for liquor is encouraged by the preparation of food with condiments and spices. These cause a feverish state of the system, and drink is demanded to allay the irritation…The dishes are highly seasoned with salt and pepper, creating an almost intolerable thirst….They would irritate and inflame the delicate coating of the stomach…. Such is the food that is commonly served upon fashionable tables, and given to the children. Its effect is to cause nervousness and to create thirst which water does not quench….Food should be prepared in as simple a manner as possible, free from condiments and spices, and even from an undue amount of salt.” CDF 339, 340

The Root of Intemperance

“But in order to reach the root of intemperance we must go deeper than the use of alcohol or tobacco. Idleness, lack of aim, or evil associations, may be the predisposing cause. Often it is found at the home table, in families that account themselves strictly temperate. Anything that disorders digestion, that creates undue mental excitement, or in any way enfeebles the system, disturbing the balance of the mental and the physical powers, weakens the control of the mind over the body, and thus tends toward intemperance. The downfall of many a promising youth might be traced to unnatural appetites created by an unwholesome diet.” ED 202, 203

“Those who accustom themselves to a rich, stimulating diet, find after a time that the stomach is not satisfied with simple food. It demands that which is more and more highly seasoned, pungent, and stimulating. As the nerves become disordered and the system weakened, the will seems powerless to resist the unnatural craving. The delicate coating of the stomach becomes irritated and inflamed until the most stimulating food fails to give relief. A thirst is created that nothing but strong drink will quench.” ED 203

Food Inflame the Stomach and Demand Stimulants

“In this fast age, the less exciting the food, the better. Condiments are injurious in their nature. Mustard, pepper, spices, pickles, and other things of a like character, irritate the stomach and make the blood feverish and impure. The inflamed condition of the drunkard’s stomach is often pictured as illustrating the effect of alcoholic liquors. A similarly inflamed condition is produced by theuse of irritating condiments. Soon ordinary food does not satisfy the appetite. The system feels a want, a craving, for something more stimulating.” MH 325

“Often intemperance begins in the home. By the use of rich, unhealthful food the digestive organs are weakened, and a desire is created for food that is still more stimulating. Thus the appetite is educated to crave continually something stronger. The demand for stimulants becomes more frequent and more difficult to resist. The system becomes more or less filled with poison, and the more debilitated it becomes, the greater is the desire for these things. One step in the wrong direction prepares the way for another. Many who would not be guilty of placing on their table wine or liquor of any kind will load their table with food which creates such a thirst for strong drink that to resist the temptation is almost impossible. Wrong habits of eating and drinking destroy the health and prepare the way for drunkenness.” MH 334

“There would soon be little necessity for temperance crusades if in the youth who form and fashion society, right principles in regard to temperance could be implanted. Let parents begin a crusade against intemperance at their own firesides, in the principles they teach their children to follow from infancy, and they may hope for success.” MH 334

“There is work for mothers in helping their children to form correct habits and pure tastes. Educate the appetite; teach the children to abhor stimulants. Bring your children up to have moral stamina to resist the evil that surrounds them. Teach them that they are not to be swayed by others, that they are not to yield to strong influences, but to influence others for good.” MH 334

A Bible Quote to Note: “He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink…” Numbers 6:3

Grab a friend and share the wealth, from what you’ve learned in the School of Health! In our next class, we shall learn more about how stimulating foods contribute to the development of an appetite for intoxicants.  Until then, God bless!

Tell us what you learned from today’s class, in the comment section, below!

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