JUSTIFICATION FOR DRINKING WINE

 

          JUSTIFICATION FOR DRINKING WINE

Wine is an alcoholic drink made from the juice of grapes that has been left to ferment. It has a number of verities and is drunk all over the world by adults of permissible age.

Morally, there is no justification for drinking any kind of wine because it intoxicates and becomes an addiction for the whole of one’s life. From that angle water is the best drink for a gentleman.  

Anxious people drink wine  as a medicine.  Though wine’s effects can sometimes feel like a welcome reprieve from anxiety, it’s not a solution. It is rightly said : “On top of other health risks --- like liver damage, cancer, and heart disease --- wine can effect your brain health and make anxiety worse.”

On the positive side it is said  that wine raises “good” cholesterol , prevents forming of blood clots; boosts memory, promotes eye health; reduces risk of cancer; controls blood pressure and helps in regulating blood sugar.

In spite of its benefits, drinking of wine has prohibitory aspects. Look at the following  quotes:

1.”The first draught serveth for health, the second for pleasure, the third for shame, and  the fourth for madness. 

2. The Japanese say: “A man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, and the next drink takes the man. “

3.Strong drink is not only the devil’s way into a man, but man’s way to the devil.

4. Habitual intoxication is the epitome of every crime.

5. Drunkenness places man as much below the level of the brutes, as reason elevates him above them.  

            And finally, as the Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (died 65 AD) said: Drunkenness is nothing else but a voluntary madness.     

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G.R. Kanwal

15 August 2024