My mother took a vow to never drink alcohol when she was a teenager. I think the vow was part of a program of Christian Endeavor, which was a youth organization. Whatever the origin of the vow, she took it seriously. Other than a sip of some alcoholic lemonade that she had one time, believing that it was an alcohol-free beverage, we don’t think that she ever took a drink of alcohol. Our father was similarly sober. He had witnessed aircraft accidents in which he believed alcohol was a factor and taught his students that a strict 12-hour “bottle to throttle” rule applied to pilots. Since he wanted to fly multiple times in a day, he decided to live without alcohol. Being married to our mother was also a big influence for him, I’m sure. Neither of our parents smoked, either. We grew up knowing several stories of tragedies that occurred because of addiction to tobacco and alcohol.

Our parents would sometimes refer to their cigarette and drink fund. In their early marriage they set aside the amount of money they estimated others spent on cigarettes and alcohol as a savings for travel. I think the practice of having a separate account for these funds had faded over the years, but they frequently would refer to their trips as having been funded by the fact that they did not smoke or drink. It became a bit of a joke that some years they took several large trips and justified their travel by saying that others would go on binges or engage in criminal behavior while drinking resulting in expenses that exceeded what our parents spent on travel. As adults we knew that they had good friends who were social drinkers and as far as I know the fact that they did not drink wasn’t a factor in their friendships with others.

At least three of my sisters and brothers went through periods of their lives when they smoked regularly and all of us will have a drink of alcohol from time to time.

When we were in our first call to the ministry in rural North Dakota, the State of North Dakota was the only vendor of alcohol. Bars and taverns purchased their alcohol for sale by the drink from the state. Private persons purchased alcohol at state liquor stores. Every small town had a state store. In our town, the store was right across the street from the radio station where I worked. I had a clear view from the window of the station of everyone who came and went from the store. Usually, however, my radio shifts were in the early morning before the store opened. It was, however, an unwritten expectation that ministers did not go into that store. It was also well-known that we enjoyed a glass of wine or beer from time to time and we were offered drinks when we visited the homes of congregational members.

In those days, Assumption Abbey in Richardton, North Dakota, had a special arrangement with the State of North Dakota that allowed them to sell wine with their own label. The brothers of the monastery did not make wine themselves, but they purchased California wine in bulk and bottled it with their own private label. Benedictine monks have sold wine for over 1500 years and I developed a friendship with Father Robert, who had served as Abbot before “retiring” to become the abbey’s wine expert and run the retail wine shop. He used to joke with me about my purchases being “strictly for liturgical purposes,” knowing that our congregation used non-alcoholic juice for the sacrament of communion. “Stopping to visit with Father Robert” became a euphemism for purchasing wine among our clergy colleagues.

I never was, however, a heavy drinker. A glass or two of wine with dinner was an occasional experience and not a daily habit. I have had lots of friends who drink more than I without any negative affects of which I am aware. Of course, I have also seen people for whom addiction became a problem and I have been involved in interventions to help people get treatment for alcoholism. I’ve witnessed plenty of folks for whom drinking too much resulted in big problems. After a bout with atrial fibrillation and learning that alcohol could be a trigger for irregular hearth rhythms, Susan stopped drinking alcohol completely and I drink a bit less now as a result. Still, I’m not the teetotaler my parents were.

Two recent news stories that mentioned alcohol consumption caught my attention recently. A recent report, funded by Health Canada, states that the official government-backed advice for Canadians is to consume no more than two drinks per week. This is a reduction from the previous guidelines allowing for ten drinks a week for women and 15 drinks for men. The main message of the new guidelines is that any alcohol consumption is not good for your health. If you drink, less is better.

The very next article I read after reading about the new Canadian health advice on alcohol was an article about the death of the world’s oldest person, French nun Sister André, who lived to the age of 114. According the the article, she never claimed to know the secret of longevity, preferring to answer questions about why she lived so long by saying, “Only the good Lord knows.” She did note, however, that while she was looking forward to heaven, she enjoyed earthly pleasures, including eating chocolate and drinking a glass of wine every day. Of course she lived in France, not Canada, but I think that the new Canadian guidelines would not have benefitted her. If she really had a drink of wine every day, she would have been under the old limit, but above the new one. Her alcohol consumption, however, didn’t seem to cause her any visible health consequences. 114 years is a long life by any standard.

As for me, I’m not going to worry if I have a couple of glasses of wine at dinner one night and then do it again another day. I’m fully in compliance with the new Canadian guidelines if you average it over a month. My genetic heritage doesn’t make it seem likely that I will live to 114 years, but I’m in good health right now and when I visit North Dakota, I’m not ruling out a visit with the good brothers at Assumption Abbey.