Mind bending drug bust, page-27

Please don't confuse religion with faith.

The truth of God's existence and plan for humanity is something I worked out for myself at about 35 years of age.

It is true that I was brought up in a family that encouraged me to consider the possibility of God. Very good at maths and science, by age 18 I had convinced myself, encourageded by the counterculture movement in 60's, that the existence of God wasn't something I wanted to acknowledge.

I was seriously into hedonism and upwardly mobile, woo hoo!

I was convinced that life started from lightning striking a puddle of water containing basic carbon compounds. Big bang theory and Darwinism were married mainstream facts by than theories developed to possibly explain what we see with our eyes.

l had a very well paid job in oil & gas where physics and evolution come together very usefully. Later on I explored solutions to some problems that I was facing, which opened me up to the limitations of science, even though that had given me a mostly good life in a material sense.

The coming of Jesus Christ and the manner of his departure was foretold by Isiah centuries before.

The fact of what Jesus did and told us were reliably recorded in The Bible.

If you don't know the story, it is readily accessible and I would suggest look for a church group you are comfortable with to delve into it more fully.

I have been in several church fellowships where the leaders have had historical struggles with substance abuse. Some would have died if not for Jesus.

in my family, moderate consumption of alcohol was normal, but I turned away from that as I had a bad habit of occasionally binge drinking, which was one day likely to lead to big problems for myself and family. Weirdest thing was I discovered that sobriety is so liberating.

Now I can objectively see that alcohol is no safer than other psychoactive substances. I would happily see prohibition reintroduced, but I don't think this is easy without a massive effort to evangelise people to help understand they are not losing something that benefits them.

À challenge is how alcohol abuse has permeated most churches, the police and military and it is served at political and civic functions, without question. Taking away people's rights to abuse substances is opposed by so many voices. Making people feel even more relaxed about it, through pill testing, non prosecution of possession for personal use is not the answer, any more than is dousing a fire with petrol a way to out it out.