Alcohol Education Programs Said Needed
Diocesan Press Service. December 6, 1963 [XVI-5]
Greatly expanded diocesan programs of alcohol education and increased seminary training of future priests for work with alcoholics were urged Nov. 4-7 by delegates to a Midwestern Episcopal Church strategy conference on alcoholism and alcohol education.
The meeting, attended by representatives of the bishops of 10 dioceses in the Fifth and Third Provinces, was held at the Procter Conference Center, London, Ohio. Sponsored by National Council's Department of Christian Social Relations, it was the fourth such regional meeting held since the 1961 General Convention as part of a concerted effort to help dioceses develop new responses to problems of excessive drinking and alcoholism.
It was agreed that the mounting incidence of excessive drinking in our society requires greater church effort to acquaint both youth and adults with their Christian responsibility to practice temperance, whether through total abstinence or moderate use; that the seriousness of the problem of alcoholism requires expanded educational efforts to acquaint church members with the nature of the illness and the resources for counseling and rehabilitation; that the shortage of competent counselors in the alcoholic rehabilitation field requires greater attention by the church's seminaries (as well as by the training institutions of such other disciplines as medicine and social work) to the preparation of its students for work with alcoholics; that the shortage of alcoholic rehabilitation facilities requires greater community effort to establish and support the needed hospital beds, clinics, halfway houses, and other institutions and services. In these efforts, the church has a responsibility to take a leading if not initiatory role.