Over 30 years ago I worked as a social worker in a program that was to help teenagers with alcohol and drug problems. During that time we were given statistics about accidents and hospital beds. I don't remember the exact number but in Australia it was something like 1/3 of all hospital beds were being taken by a person due to alcohol problems. A third of all the people in the hospital were there because of alcohol problems. Keeping this in mind makes us think more deeply; do we want to encourage a conditioning in our society that leads toward a third of all hospital people.
How many people die from car crashes every year? A lot of those crashes were alcohol related. How many people get in fights, kill people because they're drunk? Over and over, you can read the statistics, you know already a lot of the stories, you see them in newspapers or on TV, it's real. It possibly happened to some of you, you got drunk, you did something that was wrong, hit your best friend, stole something, whatever else. Do you want to be part of this conditioning, to encourage it? Yet even if you personally don't get drunk, but you drink with other people, what does it do for the other people? It encourages them to think it's quite ok to do it. And some of them will invariably get drunk and some of them will invariably drive their car into a tree or whatever else.
I had a good friend who survived having the top of his head ripped off when he crashed his car. He was drunk. The skin was totally peeled off the head. This is real. These are things that are real. Do we want to be part of it?
Now on another note - the money, the costs. Even if a person drinks wine, a glass with a meal somewhat harmless for a lot of people, what's the cost of wine compared to the cost of grape juice? How could that money be used in a different way? If it's just the sweet taste you're after, there's plenty of sweet taste that doesn't cost as much. So there's a money angle as well for you. What can you do with that money? Can you donate it to some good that will benefit others?
As to the pleasure of being a little tipsy, this is why many people drink, if not most people drink, it's an outward seeking for happiness. We're looking at that bottle - that's going to give me happiness. Something outward.
What're you doing here? Why did you come to a meditation retreat? Why have some of you come to lots of meditation retreats? Why have some of you tried to practice for 10 or more years? If you're not looking for happiness from inside, then you're probably not doing your practice right. The purpose for being here is to find a happiness that's from inside. The more we find this happiness inside we don't need to get tipsy, we don't need to find happiness in a bottle of beer or any other type of alcohol. We don't need it because we find a happiness inside.
So if you're still at a stage where you're finding alcohol and/or drugs a part of your happiness, start questioning it, start looking deeper, that's why you're here in this retreat to look deeper. Think about it, consider do you really need to be a part of it, and do you really want to be part of it any more or would you like to be an example that would help other people get out of that habit. To be an example to help other people find happiness from inside.