Isaiah 5--The Owner's Manual For An Addict

My life history as a recovering alcoholic and addict is contained in Isaiah 5, the handbook for us addicts. Let's look at a few key verses.

Wild Grapes

Verses 1-2: "My wellbeloved (Christ) hath a vineyard (Israel) in a very fruitful hill: And he fenced it (gave commandments), and gathered out the stones (triggers) thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine (Savior; see John 15), and built a tower (prophets) in the midst of it, and also made a winepress (the Atonement) therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes" (me).

The Pattern of Addiction

Verse 5: "I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof (protection), and it shall be eaten up (consumed by addiction); and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down" (beaten up).

Verse 6: "And I will lay it waste: (i.e. a wasted life) it shall not be pruned (disciplined), nor digged; (spiritually nourished) but there shall come up briers and thorns: (trouble and adversity) I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it" (we get thirsty and crave the next drink).

Verse 7: "He (the Lord) looked for judgment (fairness), but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry" (a riot). We say in AA: "Alcoholics don't have relationships; they just take hostages."

Verse 8: "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field (control freaks who manipulate), till there be no place, that they may be placed alone (looking out for number one) in the midst (center of the universe) of the earth!" There is nothing more selfish than the practicing addict.

Verse 10: "Yea, ten acres of vineyard (10 acres of grapes) shall yield one bath (8 gallons of wine), and the seed of an homer (six bushels) shall yield an ephah" (half bushel). My life becomes unproductive in every way.

Verse 11: "Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!" 

My alcoholism retrogresses to morning drinking and harder liquor and becomes like a fire burning out of control. I think President Monson once spoke about playing with matches.

Verse 12: "And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands."

Modern translation: There is a table with bread and water and a white cloth, and the people are singing a nice hymn. It looks like the sacrament, but no one is thinking about Jesus. Reverence for sacred things has dropped out of my life.

Verse 13: "Therefore my people are gone into captivity (no translation necessary), because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished (in the grip of compulsion), and their multitude dried up with thirst (unsatisfied). We suffer the effects of the "God hole." We try to fill up that empty place in our souls with alcohol, drugs, sex, food, etc., but we are left empty and craving.

Verse 14: "Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it."

I love it when Isaiah gets graphic like this! I am going to descend into the jaws of hell and fall til I hit rock bottom!

Verse 15: "And the mean man (common or average man) shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled" (brought to shame). God is no respecter of persons (see Acts 10:34), and neither is addiction. The disease of addiction doesn't care if you're rich or poor, black or white, or even whether or not you go to church.

Verse 18: "Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope."

We are tied to our drug of choice like a horse to a cart. Do I drag my bottle around, or does it drag me?

Verse 19: "That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!"

I know this sounds like a great motto for modern missionary work, with the Lord "hastening His work" (see D&C 88:73), but Isaiah is actually talking about non-believers in this passage. It's the mentality of the addict: Let me see it right now, and give me instant gratification.

Verse 20: "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"

Oh the language of the 21st century! Everything is couched in political correctness, regardless of the moral message.

Verse 21: "Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" As an addict, I had to have my way. It's my way or the highway. When I got to AA and heard Step Three for the first time ("Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him), it was a radical about-face.

Verse 22: "Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink." Isaiah warns again about the dangers of alcoholism and addiction.

Verse 24: "Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble (fragments of a broken life), and the flame consumeth the chaff (the shell of denial), so their root shall be as rottenness (rotten little character defects), and their blossom (divine potential) shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel."

I think President Monson warned about playing with matches.

Verse 25: "And their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets." 

For some addicts, death is the final result. I have seen my friends die from this disease.

There Is A Solution

Verse 25: "For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still."

The Lord always gives us a second chance (and a third, fourth, til "seventy times seven"). His hand is "stretched out still."

Verse 26: "And he will lift up an ensign (restored gospel) to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: (far away places like Utah) and, behold, they (modern missionaries) shall come with speed swiftly."

Verse 27: "None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; (overnight) neither shall the girdle of their loins (belts) be loosed, nor the latchet (laces) of their shoes be broken." Modern missionaries will travel to their destinations and arrive the same day without taking off belts or shoes.

Verse 28: "Whose arrows (fuselage and tail surfaces of an airplane) are sharp, and all their bows bent (wings of the plane are shaped like a bent bow), their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels (of the plane) like a whirlwind."

I am waiting for the day when President Uchtdorf confirms this aviation analogy.

Verse 29: "Their roaring shall be like a lion (Christ; see Genesis 49:9; Rev. 5:5), they shall roar (as airplane engines) like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it." 

This giant machine (airplane) will gobble up all the passengers and carry them away safe.

Testimony

I am grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the grace it affords to overcome addiction of all kinds. I am grateful that Jesus experienced my personal addictions in Gethsemane and successfully overcame all of them, so He can succor me "according to the flesh" (see Alma 7:12). I am grateful to missionaries of all kinds, including AA friends who testified of the power of grace and of a Higher Power to whom I could turn. I am grateful to my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, who personally appeared to the boy Prophet Joseph Smith and lifted up an ensign to the nations. This restored gospel has saved my life! I am grateful for parents and family members who forgave me in their hearts for all the awful things I did (and sometimes continue to do) while practicing my addictions. I am grateful for a loving wife who puts up with me while I stay up too late writing blogs.