I AM SITTING AT THE KITCHEN TABLE IN AN APARTMENT I SHARE with six other girls. We’re getting ready to go out to a dinner with people we really don’t want to socialize with. One girl slams down another case of Coors on the kitchen table. Drinking, in their mind, will obviously help even out the bitterness of the evening. It doesn’t matter who you have to talk to if you don’t remember them the next day, right?

“You want one, Rachel?” they ask. Pause. Long pause.

It is moments like these when my beliefs are tested most. What does a young spiritual girl do in this situation? What does light and love have to say about beer? Or pot? Decisions like these remind me that no matter how voraciously I approach the work of Kryon, or Edgar Cayce, or any spiritual teaching, it will not give me a specific guidebook to all of life’s little ins and outs. We may sit in meditation for hours, or read Soul Purpose curled up in our favorite chair, but our true faith is not defined until we step out into the world full of decisions and we become what we read about. Metaphysically, the books may teach, but we have the free choice to act; to re-member who we are in every moment. But if there are no specific dos and don’t list for lightworkers, how then can I find the basis to make the decision I must now make?

There are a thousand reasons I could list that make alcohol unappealing to me. It smells bad, you make yourself sick, it’s empty calories (extremely dangerous for those like myself that are miniature health goddesses), and it seems to cause a lot of unnecessary trouble. But the only reasoning that really counts, in my mind, is spiritual reasoning. Since spiritual books don’t list advice on decisions about alcohol and other drugs, I knew I would have to build on what I had already been taught. My decision to drink would ultimately effect my body, so I sought to look at the teachings on human biology.

The Journey Home, my favorite book, taught me how precious and special my biology is. As an Indigo now becoming an adult, I am more and more aware of how my decisions affect that biology. The Journey Home taught me to respect my body. I started taking proper care of my skin, and my acne all but disappeared. I started taking care of my hair, and now it is soft and manageable. I started exercising regularly. and now I have less stress and more energy. I started eating healthy, balanced meals. and now I am breathing easy while those around me suffer from bronchitis, mono, and severe allergies. It takes a lot of work and effort to keep a biology package working at optimum level, but I have reaped all of the benefits.

How does this influence my decision to drink or not? Alcohol is primarily calories without nutrition, and it also has damaging effects on brain cells. The only health positive that comes from it is that it might prevent heart attacks, if taken in moderation. This effect, however, can also easily be replaced by daily exercise, which I do. The conclusion for my body is simple: it would only have a negative effect. It would be, in fact, a poison.

The wheels in my head then began to turn quicker. Would I pour tar down the isles of a church? No. Would I grow weeds in a synagogue? No. Would I drench a mosque in alcohol? No. Then why would I poison the temple that houses my soul? The answer I was led to amazed me. People on this earth would cry and wail if a cathedral was damaged, even if no one was hurt, and those same people would go out to the club and trash their own bodies that very weekend. I would not damage my biology in that way.

Furthermore, I tried to come up with the actual purpose for alcohol. What need does it meet in the human? Being that it is usually used in social settings, it seems to only serve a social purpose, but that is quite paradoxical. People drink when they are out with friends and they want to have a good time, but, as I mentioned before, you don’t have to care about who you’re with when you’re drunk because you probably won’t remember what happened anyway. It is, therefore, used as a distraction. People drink to have fun for themselves, instead of having fun with their friends. And why would I need a distraction when my goal is to spend time and “play well” with my friends when I am out. Wouldn’t it be more respectful to give my fellow human beings the most respect and attention that I can? Why should I allow myself to be distracted from the wonders of the people and the places that I have before me? Beer and pot will only show me a disillusion that has been created. Being disillusioned won’t help me accomplish the purpose of my soul, it won’t make me stronger or better, it will only lead me to believe that when I am without brain altering substance, I have a lack, and that is always a lie. Why should I poison myself, damage the temple of my soul, distract myself from the beauty of life, lie to myself, and divert from the purpose that I am here to accomplish?

“No thanks,” I replied. I felt the invisible wall go up. The one that separates the drinker from the non-drinker, lower vibrational activity from high. There are consequences for choosing the road not taken. I have learned that separation and loneliness are two of the most painful. But different people will choose different paths for different reasons, and some are meant to choose different paths for different reasons. Though the separation from others who choose differently than I may be painful, it does not blind my love or respect for them. I still find the girls amusing as I sit at the table and talk with them about our impending doom. I love them no less, even with the invisible wall separating us, because I know that their lives and decisions are their own to choose. This too is another spiritual lesson, that of unconditional love. In the end, I have chosen to honor myself and my biology as I wish it to be honored, as my spirituality taught me to honor it. I took my knowledge of self and spirit and made my own personal guide to life’s decisions. I choose to live in the light. The light of my own beliefs, my own choices, and my own responsibilities.

© 2003 Rachel Dutcher