Christine Chappell, author of Clean Home, Messy Heart and the host of The Hope + Help Project podcast, checked in a mental hospital for a week to get help from depression. Before then, she had developed a tendency to drink her sorrows away. Whenever she felt undesirable feelings of sadness, she turned to liquor to manage the pain.
Now, as she prepared to re-enter the world with her new bipolar disorder II diagnosis, she finally conceded that intoxicating her sorrows was all harm and no good as she has heard the message, “Stay away from alcohol,” loud and clear. To the new her, the slightest drop of liquor would act like fuel on a smoking flax.
Christine’s case is not an isolated one. Most people who battle depression know what it’s like to turn to alcohol — or any substance — for relief. Regularly, they are tempted to grasp at anything within reach to numb the pain, to quiet the voices, to tame the grief.
But what starts as periodic self-medication can quickly morph into a reflexive habit, and as in Christine’s case, the bottom of the glass never marked the end of her troubles. It rather made it worse.
“The drink that promised much became a bitter salve, a Christ-less crutch that could offer no life, no remedy, and no rescue from the pit of despair,” she said.
The moral of her story is that using alcohol intoxication as a coping mechanism for melancholia can quickly become a matter of life and death. It acts as a depressant, fooling our brains into thinking we feel “great” while simultaneously pressing us deeper into despondency. Since the human bodies build up a tolerance to alcohol over time, we eventually require a steadily increasing supply to achieve the desired effect.
And the more we consume, the more we exacerbate the symptoms of many mental health conditions such as bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and depression, all of which can contribute to suicide.
While it may not be the alcohol that pulls the trigger or tightens the noose, its presence in our system strips our desire to honour God with our choices and quenches the Holy Spirit (see Eph. 5:18).
Drinking to drown sorrows, contrary to the chart-topping songs, is a dangerous — potentially deadly — way to respond to seasons of excessive sadness.
Though Christine wouldn’t have diagnosed herself with alcohol addiction, even moderate consumption during a season of depression can be enough to spark significant physiological and spiritual effects. Only by God’s grace did she not become one of the 29 percent of suicide victims in America found with alcohol in their system.
A thing about alcohol is that it won’t lay its life down for us, but it can demand we lay down our lives for it.
For Christians who struggle with depression, hope can feel hard to come by. We may know in our heads that we have hope in Christ, but the experience of that hope may periodically elude us. This crippling sense of hopelessness can tempt us to find other, more immediate ways to ease the pain.
Christine was helped in her early days of sobriety by meditating on Elijah’s words to the prophets of Baal:
“How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word. (1 Kings 18:21)
Elijah’s question pressed at the heart of idol worship, yet the prophets remained silent. Their stubborn reticence demonstrated allegiance to a false god. As they begged Baal to show himself by bringing a roaring fire to their altar, they realised their prayers were in vain because their false god did not intervene.
Similarly, alcohol offers an equally false narrative of hope to the depressed. We hope it will lighten our load, but it’s powerless to remove burdens. It can’t simplify our problems; on the contrary, it complicates our sorrows physically, spiritually, and relationally.
The drink has no voice to soothe us—for numb isn’t the same as healing. Wine offers no rescue—for disorientation isn’t the same as freedom. We seek in the glass that which only the God of all comforts can supply: the all-satisfying love of our living hope, Jesus Christ.
Depression hurts, and while the desire to escape from its pain is understandable, crying out to Christ is the distinctly Christian response. Strong drink tries to muzzle our sorrow, but God in his kindness gives us instead the language of biblical lament. He invites us to speak honestly to him, to unburden our woes and complaints, to give utterance to the heartache within.
As Mark Vroegop’s helpful book puts it, “Lament is the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promises of God’s goodness.”
Biblical lament allows us to acknowledge that depression can be hard, and God can be good—both at the same time. This is why Vroegop also describes lament as “a prayer in pain that leads to trust.”
God’s sovereignty and our pain is a real-life tension; therefore, we must desperately trust in his goodness, even when living feels anything but good.
Christians don’t lament to a manmade bottle of alcohol—but to the very God Almighty, who hears our cries and counts our tears (Ps. 56:8). The bottle or glass has no life-giving answers for the despondent soul. It lures us away from the light, settling our spirits into the confines of wretched darkness.
But to choose to surrender a sadness to Christ is to believe — despite the depression — that he is walking us through and out of the miry bog, turning the darkness before us into paths of light (Isa. 42:16).
Read Christine Chappell’s story on The Gospel Coalition here.
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