We are Human Beings. This means that we possess two halves to our existence. We are “human”, that is, we possess a physical body; and we are a “being”, something that connotes more than mere physical existence and behavior. We have a spiritual side.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, the “CCC”, teaches us: (There’s a link to the CCC in in the sidebar. The numbers are the paragraphs, like the Bible is divided into Book/Chapter/Verse for easy reference, you can find things in the CCC by paragraph numbers)

362
The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic LANGUAGE when it affirms that “then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.

363
In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person. But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

365
The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

367
Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people “wholly,” with “spirit and soul and body” kept sound and blameless at the Lord’s coming. The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul. “Spirit” signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.

Alcohol attacks this mind/body, human/being, body/soul existence. This is why alcohol abuse is evil. We feel more “spiritual” when drinking, but that is the lie and deception that we are poisoned by. The “hole in our soul” that needs to be filled is improperly filled by the illusions of alcohol. We can see by the above quotes from the CCC that we human beings are meant for greater things than what we are promised by alcohol. Alcohol poisons us spiritually at first, then proceeds on to harming us mentally, and then finally we are physically sick. (We generally heal in the reverse order when we stop drinking.)

Focus for a while on the quotes from the CCC. Allow the notion of the body/soul unity to move you away from the mundane.

We are created in the image and likeness of God, and are on a journey back to our Creator.

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