This will be my final article on the subject of alcoholic beverages. All of us are influenced by our past experiences and my case is no exception.

My conviction at the time of my conversion was Christ demands change. Old lifestyle habits, activities and attitudes had to die so that my growth in Christ would at least have a chance to root in my new life. No one had to convince me that certain activities had to cease.

Now 51 years after my call to preach and minister, no one needs to affirm my decision to abstain from alcoholic beverages and be a "teetotaler." This does not make me spiritually superior or intellectually elite, but it does make me glad to know at least on this issue no one has stumbled over my conviction of total abstinence to a life of drunkenness.

Let me list some additional practical/pragmatic reasons to abstain:

•Use of alcoholic beverages is perhaps the number one social problem in American society. Much of the fallout from this issue feeds on human weakness and leads to human bondage. We all operate from an ethical system and standards of right conduct that hinders moral decay. When moral decay sets in, society will spiral downward.

•My observation in ministry has been that when family breakups and psychological breakdowns occur, alcohol is involved most of the time. Advertising seeks to define the bar as a counseling center and "booze" as a shortcut to paradise. Both are false assumptions. The use of alcohol does not make you more responsible and no more accepted; in direct proportion to usage, it makes you "loose" in your speech, conduct and morals.

•There is no sure-fire way to know a person's toleration level of alcohol. But reason demands if you totally abstain you will be neither a moderate drinker nor an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a dreadful thing. It is an illness which I realize will not be cured by excessive moralizing or ongoing denigration any more than an ulcer can be cured by throwing a copy of the Ten Commandments at it.

In summary, it is not my intent to isolate anyone but it is my intention to address any issue that poses a problem to the well-being and decision-making process of the Florida Baptist State Convention.

I repeat again, I am not running a poll to determine the popularity of the decision to ask our State Board of Missions to include a statement that prohibits persons who use alcohol from serving on the Boards of the entities of the Florida Baptist State Convention. Others have chosen to make it an issue that must be addressed.