On this program Charles L. McHugh, Jr., of Norfolk, Massachusetts, told of his own experience. The program was as follows:

Speaker: Prayer, and a right understanding of God and of man's spiritual relationship to Him, will bring complete release from the desire for strong drink. This desire has become a serious problem for a great many people. Our guest today will tell how he was able, through the study of the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy to overcome the thirst for alcohol by gaining a thirst for spiritual good, which brought freedom and happiness.

Would you tell us quite frankly what your experience was, Mr. McHugh? When did the problem of liquor become a serious one?

Mr. McHugh: Well, I started drinking more or less regularly before I went into the service, but I picked up a real desire for strong drink after I was overseas. I guess it was a combination of not standing up for what I knew was right and maybe taking the line of least resistance.

Speaker: I see. And what branch of the service were you in, Mr. McHugh?

Mr. McHugh: I was a pilot in the Air Force. I guess I may have thought drinking helped relieve the tension of those days. Gradually the habit just seemed to be part of me, and when I returned home this made the adjustment to civilian life even more difficult. I just didn't seem to be able to reconcile myself to settling down and getting back to normal. In addition, I had marital problems, so I began to drink more and more. My drinking finally got to the point where I was blacking out. I was frightened by the condition I was in, and I decided something had to be done.

I'd been interested in Christian Science for some time, and I liked its teachings about God. Also I knew it was possible to be healed through prayer, but frankly, I never quite understood that it takes much study and devotion to find help and healing. During the war years I carried the Bible with me and a copy of Science and Health. But mostly these lay in the bottom of my foot locker. But now I felt that if I'd make an honest effort to really gain an understanding of God, I could be freed from the liquor habit. So I started studying the Bible and Science and Health seriously. My office was not far from a Christian Science Reading Room, and I spent many wonderful lunch hours studying and praying. This went on for about five months.

There was just one more serious bout with the habit. I went to a party some miles out of Boston, and afterward I didn't even recall driving home. When I got up the next day I remember saying, almost crying, that I wanted to be rid of this thing once and for all. A little later I picked up a copy of The Christian Science Monitor, and my attention was caught by the word "thirst" in large letters. It was part of an advertisement for the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, and it brought out the thought of true thirst and quoted Christ Jesus' words, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." It pointed out that the false thirst for alcohol is the opposite of a spiritual thirst for truth and light and understanding.

As the meaning of these thoughts dawned on me, it was just as though the old clouds lifted. I knew the false thirst was gone, and the very real thirst for truth that was left was being satisfied through my study of the Bible and Science and Health. From that moment on I was healed. This was back in 1948, and since then I've never had the least desire for liquor, and it has been offered to me on a number of occasions. With this healing also came great moral regeneration. All I can remember is that it suddenly seemed as if I was out in the light after years of darkness. Since then I've also experienced physical healings, and home and business problems have been worked out through prayer.

Speaker: Thank you. Mr. McHugh. I'm sure your healing will encourage and strengthen everyone who is seeking release from, this trouble.

Christian Science heals the desire for strong drink in the same way it heals any other problem, that is, by bringing the realization that God is infinite Love, all-embracing. all-powerful Love, and by revealing that man in God's likeness is pure, upright, free, subject only to the law of God.

Through the understanding of of what this really means, anyone can prove the powerlessness, the complete unreality, of those underlying mental conditions which may seem, to some, to make alcohol necessary as a means of escape. When you discover the nature of the real man of God's creating—your own true self—you find that in reality you are actually free from fear, insecurity, maladjustment, and any other type of bondage.

As Mrs. Eddy points out in Science and Health (p. 224): "The power of God brings deliverance to the captive. No power can withstand divine Love." Mrs. Eddy also says (p. 225): "Whatever enslaves man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes man free."

When we find this out, such things as thirst for alcohol are replaced by a spiritual thirst for truth, light, and understanding. Man reflecting God's infinite nature cannot be limited and frustrated. As God's image and likeness, he enjoys complete freedom.

Freedom comes by our making an honest effort to understand God and man's spiritual relationship to Him. This understanding gives us such a clear sense of God's ever-present help, such confidence in His omnipotent goodness, that we have the courage and the ability to face our problems and work them out through reliance on God alone. In Christian Science, release from our troubles does not come by running away from them—nor by trying to forget them. It comes through spiritual awakening.

It is commonly believed that people sometimes turn to alcohol because of maladjustments of various kinds. But as the expression of God, good, the real man can never suffer from maladjustment. Man has no inner conflicts. In reality God's law maintains all things in perfect adjustment—in perfect relationship. Man has a definite purpose and usefulness in God's divine plan for His children. We only need to understand this to experience it. Then we find our lives working out harmoniously.

Very often self-condemnation goes hand in hand with strong drink. But this mental state begins to disappear as we gain a clearer understanding of the real man's purity, uprightness, and God-given dominion. This brings regeneration of character.

"But," you may ask, "what about overcoming the physical conditions which follow in the wake of excessive drinking? How are they to be healed?"

These unpleasant physical effects disappear as we gain a more correct understanding of man in God's likeness. No poison nor deterioration can touch man's true, God-given selfhood. The thirst for spiritual good brings a leavening of thought which has a corrective, healing effect on the body and on every phase of our human experience.

Friends, this healing truth is available to you today, just as it was in Bible times when Christ Jesus said. "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

The musical selection on the program was Hymn No. 77 from the Christian Science Hymnal (God is my strong salvation).