Bible reading program help Korean families recover from alcohol abuse

Seoul – Church leaders in Korea have advised spiritual reading of the Bible to help alcoholics and their families, affected by the hurt caused by alcohol abuse, overcome their problems.

"Alcohol addiction is a spiritual disease. It causes chronic soul disease not only in alcoholics themselves but also in their families. Both need to overcome the disease spiritually through Catholicism and be born again," says Father Augustine Kim Tae–kwang, spiritual advisor of Seoul archdiocese's Catholic Alcohol Pastoral Ministry Center.

The center provides a 12–step Bible–reading program based on the 12–step program popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous to support alcoholics in their struggle to control their addiction. The steps involve acknowledgment of the problem, self–forgiveness, turning to a higher power and making amends.

The center estimates that 7.3 million of South Korea's 48 million people abuse alcohol or are dependent on people who do.

Father Kim told recently that the Bible program aims to cure hurts caused by alcohol abuse. "I combined the Bible with the existing 12–step program to lead alcoholics to Jesus Christ," he said.

Every week he distributes to about 20 participants a Bible phrase based on one of the 12 steps. During the week, they reflect on the phrase and share their meditations. The program is for both alcoholics and their families.

"The Bible has the power to cure spiritual diseases. Through continual reflections on Bible phrases, patients come to know God and look deep into themselves. This process can help them understand themselves and cure the internal scars caused by alcohol abuse," the priest explained.

Viviana, 54, wife of an alcoholic, disclosed recently that she joined the program expecting to meet God through reading the Bible. "I feel that following the steps of recovery cures my hurts," she said.

"While meeting people and sharing in the meditation on the Bible phrases, I feel sympathy with other participants who have the same pain and hidden sorrow caused by alcoholism," she added.

Viviana's husband was hospitalized three times for diseases related to alcoholism including a ruptured vein and decay of his thighbone due to poor blood circulation caused by his drinking.

"Now he has stopped drinking and has a job. But the hurt he caused my children and me still affects us. Later, I'll bring my children to this program," she added.

Theodotia, 51, said she tried every way she could think of to stop her husband's drinking. "I shouted, comforted and threatened my husband to make him stop drinking but I failed and became disheartened."

She admitted that during the Bible–reading program, "I found many problems and hurts inside me, and realized that my efforts to stop his drinking were incorrect and that I was only pouring oil on the fire of his addiction."

Another participant thought her husband's alcoholism was just drunken rowdiness. But she said that through the sharing of participants in the recovery group, she realized her husband actually had a serious alcoholism problem.

Besides the 12–step Bible–reading program, the pastoral center provides various other programs for alcoholics and their families. It runs meetings for total abstinence from alcohol and organizes groups of recovering people. It also offers programs for children of families in which alcohol is abused and conducts prayer meetings for them.

Father Bartholomew Heo Keun, director of the center, said that the treatment of alcohol–related diseases requires a long period of time. "To overcome the disease, relating to and reconciliation with God should be a preferential option, and we should commit ourselves to God's care by following God's words," he added.

Father Heo founded the center in 1999 after he overcame his own alcohol addiction. Before that, Columban missionaries worked with alcoholics from 1979 until Father Mortimer Kelly, who worked with urban working–class alcoholics, died in 1990.