APPENDIX: ON DRUNKENNESS

243. • Drunkenness is the immoderate use of drink up to the unnatural privation of reason. - Thus commonly.¹

Perfect drunkenness, namely reaching even to the privation of reason, is a grave sin of itself. This is established 1° from reason; for voluntarily to deprive oneself of the use of reason, by disturbing it in a violent and unnatural mode, at least without a grave cause, is without any doubt gravely repugnant to rational nature. For man thus casts himself down to the state of brutes and defiles the image of God in himself.²

This is established 2° from Sacred Scripture:³ Nor drunkards ... will possess the kingdom of God. - And Isaiah:⁴ Woe to you who rise in the morning to pursue drunkenness. ... Moreover the particle woe in Sacred Scripture denotes a most grave evil.

But more probably drunkenness is of itself only a venial sin if it is imperfect. I say: of itself; because very often by accident it is mortal, namely by reason either 1) of scandal, which for example a priest would give, even if he were imperfectly drunk only once, or a father of a family if often; or 2) of the depraved end intended, as if someone should drink to excite in himself more vehement lust; or 3) of damage to be brought upon health or family; or 4) of grave sadness caused to wife, children, or parents; or 5) of other sins of which drunkenness is the voluntary cause, as we shall say presently at n. 245, q. 5°.

244. Questions. - Quaer. 1° What are the signs of perfect drunkenness?

Resp. The following are adduced, namely: 1° not knowing how to distinguish good from evil; 2° not remembering words said or deeds done in drunkenness; 3° doing things altogether unusual, which namely would never otherwise be done with a sound mind, ... etc. - But certain signs are not: hesitation of the tongue, staggering of the feet, the sight of objects doubled, or of objects turning themselves in a circle.¹

Quaer. 2° Is it licit to make oneself drunk for expelling illness?

Resp. The affirmative opinion of St. Alphonsus² seems sufficiently probable, indeed more probable, in the case in which the drink is taken and is suitable for opposing the cause of the illness; for then privation of reason, as happening by accident and indirectly, can licitly be permitted, just as it is licit for a mother to take a drug directly tending to preserve her own life, although the expulsion of the fetus happens indirectly (n. 474, II). Hence it will be licit for you to take a notable amount of generous wine, for example of Champagne, to expel cholera once heat has been restored to the viscera, although you foresee that from it you are to be made drunk; or of the drink called "Whiskey," that the poison introduced by the bite of a serpent may be opposed. St. Thomas³ adds that a drink necessary for health cannot be called immoderate.

Omitting the question whether drunkenness is licit for undergoing a surgical operation, which today scarcely pertains to practice, since other easier means are available for that end, concerning these means:

Quaer. 3° Is the use of opium, ether, chloroform, and similar things licit for this end?

Resp. Affirmatively, since the primary power of these is soporific or sedative of the nerves, not intoxicating. Yet dangers must be avoided.

245. • Quaer. 4° Is it licit to induce someone to drunkenness, that he may be turned away from a greater evil?

Resp. St. Alphonsus:⁴ "The affirmative opinion seems sufficiently probable (not improbable, H. A. Tr. VIII, 7) to me and to other learned men consulted by me, whether the drunkenness be material or formal, because of the reason that it is licit to induce another to a lesser evil, that he may be prevented from a greater one."

Quaer. 5° Are all evils done in drunkenness imputable?

Resp. 1° Negatively, if they were not foreseen, not even in a confused way; because whatever things were not foreseen must be held wholly involuntary.

Resp. 2° Affirmatively, for the opposite reason, if they were foreseen, at least as to evils of deed, whether of commission or of omission.

I said: at least as to evils of deed; for as to evils of the mouth, or words, or even deeds merely contumelious, probably they are not imputable if they are uttered against men, since according to common estimation they are judged to inflict no contumely. Yet otherwise if they are uttered against God, as blasphemies, etc. ... because these things are intrinsically evil, and therefore tend to the contumely of the divine honor; but otherwise, as having been foreseen, they are voluntary in the cause itself. Thus St. Alphonsus, who in H. A. rejects the contrary opinion, while in the Work he does not dare to call it improbable.¹

246. Resolves. - 1° They sin gravely who, drinking by day and night, knowingly expose themselves to the danger of drunkenness. Likewise those who by command or counsel induce others to drunkenness; or who provoke to equal draughts when the danger of drunkenness has been foreseen.

2° They sin gravely who, knowing through experience that they are made drunk in these or those associations, nevertheless spend time in them. Likewise those who, while drinking, advert to the danger of drunkenness and nevertheless continue to drink.

3° They also sin gravely who drink so much that drunkenness must follow, although they commit themselves to sleep before they are deprived of senses and reason, because in sleep they do not have proximate power for the use of reason; besides, the thing is evil of itself.

4° Nor are they excused from grave sin who, under pretext of the custom of the fatherland, or of good affection, or of civility, press and as it were necessitate guests to drink even to the danger of drunkenness; otherwise, however, if only more liberal drink is offered and proposed more often, yet in moderate quantity.

5° They do not sin gravely of themselves who are so strong, and so accustomed to wine, that they are never made drunk, even if they drink more largely than others, unless they so exceed temperance that grave detriment of health can rightly be feared (those mighty at drinking).