Ramadan Night 3

Satan's plan is (but)
To excite enmity and hatred
Between you, with intoxicants
And gambling, and hinder you
From the remembrance
Of Allah, and from prayer
Will ye not then abstain?
S. 5 A. 91

This past year, almost 11,000 people died in alcohol related automobile accidents in the USA alone.  One in three traffic deaths is caused by alcohol, and on average one American is killed in an alcohol related accident every 50 minutes. Three million violent crimes each year are attributed to alcohol use, that is just under one crime per second. Three out of four spousal assailants are under the influence of alcohol.  These statistics do not include drugs, just alcohol.  They are also only the reported crimes.

Twelve million Americans are addicted to gambling.  More than 60% of addicted gamblers report that they have committed crimes to fund their habit.  If the expense they caused was spread to all citizens, it would come to $57 for every man, woman, and child.  

These are just a few statistics, what is not listed is the number of broken families, ruined friendships, lost lives, lost income, lost productivity, lost potential.  All for the right to consume fermented drinks, and to try to make money without honestly earning it.  Who else but the devil could have created such plagues on the earth, that the earthlings themselves would jealously covet?  And who else could kill a man in a drunken accident, then sit in the back of the room, invisibly chortling, as his relatives send off their loved one in a drunken wake?  Who else could have created such silly contrivances (when examined exhumed from human reverence) that mothers would trade for their own children, fathers for their lives, teens for their dreams.  Only the devil.

I have always been puzzled as to how liberals and conservatives alike can defend these horrible indulgences.  I think the devil is in the details and knows them well, and the details are something like this: Inside of us lies that person who longs to be superior, to be able to handle what others cannot, to be able to master anything with self-discipline.  No matter how many people perish and suffer from alcohol and gambling, as long as some can control their indulgence, others will envy the ability, and declare their right to compete. Never have I heard a logical defense of these two activities that did not include a specious appeal to human freedom, human choice.  Never a balanced accounting of loss and gain.  Very little discussion of gain period.  The most honest argument is that the cork could never be put back in the bottle (forgive the pun). Only the devil can convince you a battle is lost before it is joined, or that you can rationalize away anything with a little vain vocabulary. 

I believe in the devil for many reasons.  I believe only the devil can make us jealous of what we don't have, what we don't deserve, and he can make us settle for the false consolation of drink.  I believe only the devil can make us lust after that which we do not earn, and he can make us settle on the caprice of luck, slanted luck at that.  I believe the devil has led us to create misery  and despair in order to give us these two maladies, and let us believe they are crutches, the only way to temporarily escape the lives we have come to dread. And I believe only the devil can distract us so completely that we lose our way, and trade our blessings and dreams for the gilded folly of addiction., shinier in the gloom of our malaise than the sober strength embedded in the words of our Lord. The devil deals in trinkets and pretty looking babbles.

I don't know where the devil is, or exactly what he is.  He has been in my life since the start though, wreaking enough havoc and mayhem to distract my family from a faith they once held, allowing me to build a false sense of faith, or even an anti-faith.  I don't know if the devil is naturally inside all of us, or like a vampire has to be invited in, but he shows up.  I have discussed the horrors alcohol brought to my life in earlier posts, gambling was also right behind, taking everything good we could have know, stunting our sense of worth and self-promise, creating a reality only the devil could have loved. I have never really been frightened of or motivated by the  threat of hell, I have been there.

Revisiting God's words above, I am sad they were not known by my parents, their parents, their parent's parents, any of my ancestors.  For the devil fears a weak link, a link that can break the entire chain.  I hope I have broken my chain, that my daughters see in my life an alternative to these cruel crutches that cripple us, our families, friends, and society.  Crutches can cripple, the devil knows that too.

*A painful example: http://philosopherking-michael.blogspot.com/2010/10/leslie-set-it-off.html