A couple weeks ago I attended a bonfire that was not very much to my liking, so I kept my new bottle of Forty Creek Copper Pot close to my side. A little too close, apparently; the next morning I awoke dizzy with disgust and soreness, and my bedding was covered in vomit. Examining the remainder of the bottle, I determined that I had imbibed five hundred mills of the forty-percent beverage. Accordingly, the next eight hours were spent detoxing, and I vomited ten more times, the worst hangover my well-seasoned roommate had ever seen.
This morning I read a letter of Seneca regarding drunkenness, which made an interesting observation: to the drunk, "constant motion is his home." This dizziness or false motion, as well as the passiveness of thoughts and senses that characterize drunkenness, produce a non-being full of restlessness; a shaking ghost; a violent phantom without a place to lay his head. Such seems the lot of the demons: spiritual beings who have lost all sense of good. Gregory of Nyssa, in his Life of Moses, describes the process of sanctification as an infinite ascent, an acceleration deeper into the inner life of the Eternal God. The demonic, drunken state, then, is the same, but in the opposite direction; it is a downward spiral toward nothingness, eternal change, heat death, utter chaos.
I pray we find rest in God. Be careful with the drink.
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