Speaker: Today there's deep concern about alcoholism. Is there really a way out of the suffering experienced by problem drinkers and their families, a way of release from the bondage of liquor? How can the alcoholic be restored to useful living?

Our guest will answer these questions out of his own experience. I'd like you to meet Theodore E. Metzner, of Louisville, Kentucky.

Mr. Metzner, we'd like to hear about your experience.

Mr. Metzner: Well, I started to drink in my late teens. I'd take a few cocktails, just to be popular, you know. Then I went into the real estate business, and I thought I had to drink to be successful.

When my father died, my brother and I took over the family business; but my drinking interfered with my work to the extent that I had to be away a lot. At this point my brother felt I'd better retire from the office until I could control my drinking.

I retained an interest in the business, but I wasn't able to control this habit. Gradually I began to lose my self-respect, and my friends dropped away. I tried all the cures, but nothing helped. Then in the early part of 1933 I drove down to Little Rock [Arkansas] on a business trip, and while there I met some old buddies, and we went on a big party. As a result of this I had to go into a private hospital. I was even having hallucinations.

I had a digestive problem too and had treatment for that. The doctor said the liquor had damaged stomach. He said that if I survived, I'd always be an alcoholic, and there wasn't much that I could do about it. He advised me to go back to Louisville, where my family could take care of me. So one morning I left the hospital and decided to drive back there.

I was in such a nervous condition that it took me about three hours to drive twenty-five miles. Finally I pulled up by the side of the road; I couldn't go any farther. So I got out of the car and sat there on the bank of the Arkansas River. I thought, "Here I am about at the end of my rope. I'd probably be better off if I just ended it all."

Then I began to think of the Christian Science Sunday School. My parents had sent me for a while when I was a little fellow. I began to remember something my teacher said to me: "When everything else in the whole world fails, there's God to help you. Sometimes we run off and leave Him, but God is always there."

And I thought, "Why certainly, maybe that's the answer to this thing—to turn to God." And then I remembered the Lord's Prayer and one of Mary Baker Eddy's hymns, which begins,

I just sat there praying. It was really a sense of divine anointing that took place there. I saw that all this struggling and misery didn't belong to my real self, the man of God's creating. The hopelessness and anxiety and fear and condemnation all changed into a sense of anticipation and hope and joy. It was as if, well, the sun had started to shine again. I remember I just sobbed; I was so happy.

I got back into the car and drove to Nashville [Tennessee], almost three hundred miles, that day. The next day when I got to Louisville I went to see a Christian Science practitioner right away. I told her what had happened and said: "I want you to pray for me. I want to be healed." She looked at me and said: "Son, you have been healed. You're perfectly all right, because you're the son of God right now."

She explained that when I'd opened my thought, when I'd turned to God, reached out to Him, this, had opened the way for the healing. Then she explained that man's true self in God's likeness is spiritual and perfect, not mortal and sinful; that my real, God-given self had never been touched by sin, or misery, or suffering. She said she'd help me through prayer till I got completely on my feet again.

Well, I began studying Christian Science very earnestly, and in a few weeks I was back in business with my brother. There were many who questioned whether this healing would be permanent. But it has been permanent, and I've never had even the desire for a drink since. And the digestive problem was healed too.

Since this healing I've led a very active and happy life. And through it I've learned the deeper spiritual significance of man's relationship to God.

Speaker: Thank you very much, Mr. Metzner. I know that what you've just told us will bring comfort and hope to many. It was so good of you to share the experience with us.

Friends, what a tremendous blessing it is for everyone to realize that the bondage of alcoholism can be broken permanently through the power of God alone, through humble prayer which recognizes the perfection of God and the consequent perfection of man in God's likeness.

Let me go into that just a little more by using a simple illustration. If you held up a rose, a pure white rose, in front of a mirror, would you see a brown, faded, decayed rose in that mirror? No. The reflection would be just as beautiful, just as perfect, as the original. And so Christian Science teaches that since man in God's likeness is the very expression of God, infinite good, he can reflect only the qualities of God. And the man I'm talking about is our real self, yours and mine.

But is there someone listening to this program who just can't believe that this is true about himself or about someone very near and dear to him? Then let him turn humbly, expectantly, to the Bible, to the very first chapter of Genesis, where it reads, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." And then a little farther on, "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

So, you see, it's a question of starting at the very beginning of things, of starting with God as the only cause, the one infinite Mind, or Spirit, and then reasoning from this perfect cause to perfect effect, spiritual man in the image and likeness of God. This is the one sure basis to work from in solving any human problem.

Let me explain what I mean. As we gain the understanding that God is Spirit, we see that man, God's idea, is not really a mortal struggling to overcome wrong habits over which he seems to have no control. As the expression of Spirit, man has divine control over every evil suggestion, impulse, or desire. He can't be attracted to or influenced by evil of any kind.

Because God, divine Truth, is the only power, man is never the helpless victim of a so-called evil force. He is always divinely directed and protected by God, the one perfect Mind, divine Truth and Love.

Mary Baker Eddy speaks of this divine power which governs man in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she writes (p. 490), "Christian Science reveals Truth and Love as the motive-powers of man." But she points out on the same page that just theorizing about these great truths is not enough. She writes: "The Science of Mind needs to be understood. Until it is understood, mortals are more or less deprived of Truth." She continues, "Human theories are helpless to make man harmonious or immortal, since he is so already, according to Christian Science." And she adds, "Our only need is to know this and reduce to practice the real man's divine Principle, Love."

The very moment Mr. Metzner recognized that the miseries of alcoholism were no part of his real nature as the son of God, he began to realize his freedom. This same freedom is available to everyone always!

The musical selection on the program was Hymn No. 402 from the Christian Science Hymnal (How gentle God's commands).