ARTICLE II: On Drunkenness

St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 150; St. Alphonsus, V, 75; ed. G., II, p. 759; H. Ap., VIII, n. 4; Antonelli, de Alcoolismo (Med. past., II, n. 113); Noldin, I, n. 340, who cites many authors; Willems, III, p. 257.

757. Definition. Drunkenness, insofar as it is a vice, can be defined: a vice causing inordinate drinking and from it a violent deprivation of the use of reason. - Insofar as it is an act, it is voluntary excess in drink even to violent deprivation of the use of reason.

Several things concur to constitute drunkenness: a) immoderate drinking; - b) relaxation of the nerves; - c) deprivation of the use of reason, and indeed a deprivation so bestial that the lower powers exercise completely entire dominion; - d) finally, absence of a sufficient cause that may render such deprivation of reason honorable, so that this immoderate drinking is truly done from pleasure. Therefore the malice of drunkenness consists in this, that a man without cause deprives himself of the faculty of using his reason, although he is awake, or awakened.

Therefore it makes no difference whether someone first drinks immoderately, but afterward commits himself to natural sleep: that man stains himself with drunkenness, because he deprives himself of the ready power of using his reason if he is roused from sleep. Yet it would be less grave if someone by a medicine impeded the effect of the drink.

Division. 1. Drunkenness is called perfect or full, if it totally takes away the use of reason.

The signs of this perfect drunkenness are: a) If someone cannot distinguish between the licit and the illicit. - b) If he does not remember things said or done in drunkenness. - c) If he does things entirely unusual, as if contrary to custom he speaks shameful things, disturbs the household, beats his wife, etc.

2. But it is called imperfect or half-full, if it does not totally take away the use of reason, but only clouds it.

Only imperfectly drunk is he judged to be who is still able to discern between good and evil, although the imagination is somewhat disturbed, or vomiting follows, the tongue stammers, the feet totter, the eyes see double things, or the house seems to turn around, etc. (V, 78, 7 and 8).

758. Principles. I. Perfect drunkenness is a sin mortal from its whole genus. This is established from the words of the Apostle (1 Cor., 6, 10): Neither drunkards ... shall possess the kingdom of God. And reason supports it: for drunkenness deforms the image of God, insofar as it casts man down into the condition of beasts, by taking away the moderation of the senses and fitting governance (H. Ap., VIII, 4). Cf. 2.2, q. 150, a. 2.

It was said: from its genus; for drunkenness is not mortal if it deprives one of reason for a short time.

Most authors say that a long time seems to be one hour; some judge that a half-hour can no longer be called a short time (Tanquerey, II, n. 542, note). Besides, in practice, scarcely is there given a deprivation of the use of reason prolonged for so short a time only.

II. Imperfect drunkenness is of itself a venial sin; for it is not gravely opposed to right reason.

Yet often it is mortal by accident, namely by reason: 1. of scandal that, for example, a priest would give, even if he were imperfectly drunk only once, or a father of a family, if often; 2. of a wicked intended end, as if someone were to drink in order to excite more vehement lust in himself; 3. of harm that he brings upon health or family; 4. of grave sadness that he creates for wife, children, parents, etc. Confer n. 759, q. 2.

Corollaries. 1. He who directly intends drunkenness sins: because he wills something evil.

2. He who induces, invites, or compels someone to drink copiously, even under pretext of courtesy, sins, except the case in which moderation is preserved in quantity, although the drink is more liberal (V, 77).

3. He who induces someone into drunkenness, so that the latter may be turned away from committing a greater sin, rather probably does not sin: because he urges toward a lesser evil (cf. n. 509, 2).

4. He who foresees that he truly will be drunk in these or those circumstances, and notwithstanding this does not avoid such company, commits sin. - Likewise, he who during drinking plainly adverts to the danger of drunkenness, and nevertheless still goes on drinking.

5. Sometimes it is licit to take a great quantity of intoxicating drink, even if drunkenness is foreseen as about to follow.

Here, however, a multiple distinction is needed:

a) If this is done to drive away a grave disease, for example typhus, cholera, it is licit. Reason: the immediate effect of the drink is acceleration of the blood, from which the intended end is obtained (V, 76, q. 1).

b) If it is done so as not to feel pains in a surgical operation, likewise it is licit; for such drink of itself has a soporific power, from which the proportionate intended effect arises. Besides, since there is no one who does not permit in the same circumstances the use of chloroform, ether, or opium, it is not seen why the aforesaid manner of acting should be prohibited of itself. See also what will be said n. 761.

c) If finally immoderate drinking is applied to expel ordinary sleeplessness, common sadness, or to soften ordinary pains, it is not licit: because what is intended does not have proportion with the evil that is permitted. Besides, other remedies are present. Yet it would be licit to drink even to hilarity, if sadness had to be driven away.

Note. Sometimes they use chloroform to mitigate pains in childbirth. This remedy is licitly applied if the pains are foreseen as truly intolerable, especially if chloroform is administered in an interrupted manner, and analgesia, as they say, does not become total (Capellmann-Bergmann, ed. 16, p. 58; Ami du Cl., 1910, p. 16 and 1088).

759. Questions. Q. 1. Whether it is licit for someone to make himself drunk in order to avoid death, which another threatens him with unless he becomes drunk?

Resp. A twofold opinion is given: The first (which is that of St. Alphonsus, V, 76, q. 2; l. El. qq. ref., 56) denies that this is licit. For liberation from death (i.e. an act of the will on the part of him who must desist from inflicting death) will intervene only after the fact of completed drunkenness on the part of the other. Therefore the prerequisites under the heading of the indirect voluntary do not fit. Besides, the use of reason of itself is not ordered to the life of the body, but to preserving the integrity of the soul. Thus also Cajetan, the Salmanticenses, and others.

The other opinion (which is that of Lessius, Bonacina, and recent authors) affirms. Reason: the use of reason is ordered to the good of the whole. Hence, for conservation of the whole, man can permit deprivation of the use of reason. Besides, copious drinking of wine, besides deprivation of reason, produces another effect (namely liberation from death to be inflicted) equally immediately. Hence the principles of the indirect voluntary do not stand in the way.

Q. 2. Whether and how evils committed in drunkenness are imputed?

Resp. They are imputed to the drunk man unto fault, according to the measure of advertence and voluntariness that is found in the cause, or in the act of making himself drunk. Hence a) If drunkenness is involuntary, the evils that follow from it will not be imputable unto fault. b) If it is semi-voluntary, they cannot be imputed unto grave fault. c) If it is voluntary, grave evils will be imputed unto grave fault, provided they were foreseen, whether distinctly, or at least confusedly. "Hence those evils are reputed foreseen which drunkards ordinarily are accustomed to commit, or which someone from other drunken bouts has known himself to commit before; and also all sins to which he knows himself prone. For since in drunkenness, with the use of reason lost, nature necessarily operates, it will easily break forth into the vices to which it is inclined. But, on the contrary, other evils that happen by chance are not reputed foreseen" (H. Ap., VIII, 8).

Note. Several authors say that evils of the mouth, such as insults, blasphemies, and perjuries, are not imputed; because those words, uttered by a man lacking the use of reason, are purely material, as if they were uttered by a parrot; nor consequently do they have formal malice. "I accede to this opinion," says St. Alphonsus (H. Ap., l.c.), "concerning insults against men: because truly, when those are uttered by a drunk man, they are not held as dishonoring, provided he does not reveal some infamous crime; but not concerning perjuries and blasphemies, because these, although materially uttered, are always injurious to God; and if they are not voluntary in act, they are voluntary in the cause."

760. Practical Rules. 1. Young men and fathers of families who are held by the vice of drunkenness are to be corrected and reproved with grave words. Let the confessor insist opportunely, let him insist inopportunely, that they become temperate and conquerors of themselves. Let him place before their eyes the inconveniences, sins, and innumerable crimes of which alcoholism exists as the perpetually flowing origin and source. - 2. Let him prudently and moderately promote all those things that have as their end propagating associations either of abstinence or of temperance. For complete abstinence has restored many men healthy to themselves and to their family. Cf. the little works that set forth the necessity or utility of abstinence.

761. Notions. From the poppy is extracted opium, which, among other principles, contains morphine. Opium, when it is smoked, and morphine, when it is injected beneath the skin, possess the following properties: a) if the quantity is very small, they soften pain, from the fact that they act upon the nerves; b) if the quantity is increased, they procure a state of narcosis, in which all things are affected with a certain sense of particular satisfaction and pleasure; c) if the quantity is great, death is induced. - Opium and morphine, insofar as they deprive one of the use of reason, bring grave harms to health if someone often uses them: namely, the powers are diminished, the body is broken, memory is weakened, sexual appetite is excited, indeed even perverted, harm is brought to the protoplasm (Forel, Quest. sex., c. VIII), the moral sense vanishes, the will is dulled, indeed life is shortened. Many, from an unbridled desire of pleasure, come to this point, that, laboring under an invincible mania, they are driven as if necessarily to the use of these things. Physicians, in treating the sick, use morphine much; some also, whether by their own action, or in order to satisfy sick persons asking it, by help of morphine procure euthanasia, that is, a placid and tranquil death. Cf. Antonelli, II, 129. Therefore let the following principles stand:

I. As regards those not sick. 1. They do not sin who use morphine or opium in a quantity so very small that it serves rather for the quieting of the nerves. Yet let them beware of frequent use. - 2. They sin venially who, with the quantity increased, without sufficient cause apply these remedies; but mortally, who bring grave harm upon themselves from these things, even if narcosis is not present: a fortiori, if without cause they should deprive themselves of the use of reason.

II. As regards the sick. It is licit for them to use morphine, in the same cases and under the same conditions under which it is not prohibited to deprive oneself of the use of reason for procuring goods of great moment for oneself.

III. As regards the dying. 1. It does not seem illicit, in the case in which they suffer great pains, to lull dying persons for a time. - 2. But it is gravely illicit, for those not prepared for a Christian death, even if great torments are present, to administer morphine in such a way that they die while lulled: the reason is evident. - 3. Likewise, even for those well disposed, it seems prohibited under grave sin to procure such relief. The reason is: on the one side, pains are of themselves felt less in agony; on the other, such deprivation of the use of reason is a certain shortening, imposed upon the sick person, of spiritual life, which life then is especially necessary, or at least salutary. Besides, very often we are ignorant whether the dying person is truly well prepared. Since these things are so, we judge that deprivation of spiritual life at such a moment is not compensated by the temporal good (tranquillity) procured for the dying person by help of morphine. Therefore it belongs to the priest to resist the attempts of physicians. Yet he can tolerate it as regards those dying persons who otherwise would be in danger of sinning gravely again. Cf. Lehmkuhl, I, 892; Noldin, I, 343; Ami du Cl., in various articles, 1900, 1902, 1905, 1908. Cf. also, for the contrary opinion, Wouters, Nederl. Kath. Stemmen, 1911, bl. 348; Collat. Brugenses, 1911, p. 412.

Note. As regards the cultivation and commerce of opium, several Decrees of the Holy Office exist. See A. S. S., 24, p. 506; Canon. Contemp., vol. 15, p. 424, and especially Ami du Cl., 1908, p. 689.