The Feast of Booze, The Gospel of Solidarity
There are stories we tell ourselves about alcohol, about the rituals that swirl around it, about what it means to celebrate, to rebel, to cross over from the world of children to the world of grown-ups. For me—as for so many—the story of alcohol is also a story about family: of wounds opened and left raw, of arrogance, of loss, and finally, of surrender.
If you have read The People of the Sign, you know that my earliest encounters with alcohol were bound to sacred times. Every autumn, we packed the car for the Feast of Tabernacles—a biblical festival that gathered us for eight days of worship and joy.
We were told plainly, in Deuteronomy, that we should “eat and rejoice...with wine and strong drink.” As the text reads: “And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household.” Ours was a tradition that, on the whole, embraced feasting with genuine reverence. But as a teenager, I learned there was a shadow side—one I was initially old enough only to mock, and later, painfully, to understand.
In those days, my friends and I secretly dubbed the event not the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles but—half in jest, half in warning—the “Feast of Booze.” We saw, even as we participated, how quickly feasting could tip over into excess, how easily the boundary between godly celebration and reckless indulgence blurred without the guardrails of wisdom and accountability. There’s an odd irony here: we thought ourselves clever, perhaps even a little superior, for noticing this. We were not the ones falling over or losing control. We were just “having fun,” we told ourselves. It was all in good spirit.
What I didn’t know then, or refused to see, was how deep these patterns run—and how little is required, sometimes, to cross a line that was always thinner than it appeared.
When Alcohol Is Not Just a Drink
There was another side of the story, the one told in tears and silences behind closed doors.
My mother’s struggle with alcoholism was not festive, not funny, and certainly not contained to one week a year. It was the dark thread woven through the years of my childhood—the chaos, the abandonment, the destabilization that cleaved our family and left us wandering, disoriented. In The People of the Sign I tried to portray honestly how the ravages of my mother’s drinking, and her pain, shaped our destinies—the kidnapping that followed, my own sense of rootlessness, the fractures that would never fully heal.
My younger sister’s story had even more pain, even more lows, and none of the hights.
Her life wove the legacy of addiction more tightly still: a journey marked by loneliness, longing, and no small share of suffering. For her, the lure of escape—of numbing what could not be borne—became a lifelong battle. Addiction doesn’t just claim its host; it radiates outward, changing everyone connected to the story. Only weeks ago, that story claimed its most terrible coda, when she was lost to a drunk driver, a stranger running from his own limits, crashing through hers. There are no answers, not really, for a grief this sharp. Only the prayer that, as I wrote earlier, even when human restoration fails, divine reconciliation does not.
The Arrogance of “Not Having a Problem”
For years, I judged only at a distance.
Even as I was impacted by my mother’s unraveling and saddened by my sister's floundering, I was able to keep alcohol in its “proper” place. I was never the one passed out, never the one losing control. I didn’t see myself in those who suffered; I didn’t even see the risk. I even had mild contempt for my spiritual sisters and brothers, as some of those more conservative the Baptists—tee-totalers, both proud and anxious—avoided alcohol altogether. “What a lack of sophistication,” I scoffed. “Thank God I don’t have a problem.”
What I didn’t realize then was that this very confidence—the belief that I was safely in control—was its own kind of blindness. I could afford to be righteous because, as far as I could tell, I was untouched. But for some, the cost of “one drink” is all they have.
As I got older, conviction met humility. When I began to study the Baha’i Faith, I was confronted with a teaching I found hard to swallow: No drinking. Period. I wrestled, honestly and awkwardly, with that requirement. Wasn’t alcohol a part of celebration, of biblical tradition, even of Jesus’s first miracle? Wasn’t “moderation in all things” a higher, more measured path?
Yet what was my “moderation,” in truth, if not the reckless luxury of one who had not faced real consequences? The Baha’i teaching did not accuse—it simply asked, gently but without apology, whether we serve those most at risk by our public patterns and easy rationalizations. At first I resisted. But as my sister’s battle deepened, as I sat with the memories of my mother—her loss of everything she loved, and her untimely death—I began to see. My journey with alcohol was not the same as theirs, but how could I claim solidarity, and remain truly open to the suffering of others, while reserving for myself the right to the very thing that most wounded them?
In the end, I gave it up. Not because I “had to,” but because I chose to. For my sister, and for every person walking the weary road of recovery, it was the least I could offer.
What John M. Taught Me: A New Solidarity
Last Tuesday night, my guest John M. of SoberSpeak shared his story—a winding journey through the wild independence of youth to the quiet humility of service. He spoke candidly of his own escape routes—alcohol as medicine, as magic, as the quick fix that promised hope but left only emptiness come morning. He described the AA steps: their power to expose excuses, to break the cycle of blame, to slowly open a heart to a higher power. What moved me most was not just John’s endurance, but his tenderness toward those still lost in addiction. "We love you. We want you here. We need you here," was the phrase he learned to say—and learned to receive.
This—far more than clever theology or theories of moderate use—is the real answer to the crisis: to become a person who, in love and simplicity, stands beside those who struggle, not above them; who sets aside the drink for the sake of solidarity and hope.
Progressive Revelation: The New Wine
Solomon, in the book of proverbs, addressed the dangers of alcohol in no uncertain terms. Jesus, who - at His mother’s urging, turned water into wine, spoke about new wine in old wine skins, shattering the understanding and expectations of those to whom He came. The Baha’i teachings were utterly radical in their 19th century Persian context, and when we examine them closely, they are as radical today as they were then, are unflinching in their clarity: “Beware lest ye exchange the wine of God for your own wine, for it will rob you of your reason, and lead you into ignorance.” In another passage: “Alcohol consumeth the mind and causeth man to commit acts of ignorance, for he turneth away from the fear of God.” The effect of alcohol—clouding the mind, feeding the escape impulse, multiplying pain—could hardly be named more plainly.
But the teaching goes beyond the prohibitive. It doesn’t say, “Alcohol is the real joy; too bad you can’t have it.” Instead, it describes another drink: “the wine of the love of God.” This is the new wine, the one for which the old skins—habits, defenses, coping mechanisms—simply will not do. The joy and community we seek in the glass is only a pale shadow of what becomes possible when we are truly open, truly present, truly connected. The Baha’i path does not diminish joy but elevates it—transforming intoxication into communion, numbing into wonder, escape into courage.
Here’s what I know now: Many of us, far more than we admit, are running from reality. We reach not just for alcohol, but for any measure of distraction—shopping, screens, rage, busyness—anything to avoid the pain of being alive, awake, and unshielded. But the new wine is not denial. It is full engagement, solidarity, compassion, the willingness to be present to our own hurts and those of others.
To my sister—gone, but not forgotten. To my mother, whose pain paved much of this road. To John M., and to everyone doing the patient work of healing: Thank you. I am learning, slowly, to shed the arrogance that comes from “not having a problem,” and to live with the humility that is its own kind of freedom.
If this message resonates with you, share it. Tell those around you that you love them, and that their healing is your healing. And if you, or someone in your world, is struggling—know this: You are not alone. Love, and a new way of being, is possible.
Until next time—may the true wine of understanding and solidarity sustain us all.
— Wade Fransson
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