Drinking and Christianity

Two Sides of the Same Crutch

Most people need something to take the edge off.

Alcohol. Weed. Religion.

Different bottles. Same escape.

Both drinking and Christianity serve one essential function:

To numb pain.

To soften the sharpness of reality.

To act as a crutch when life feels unbearable.

But here’s the truth Nietzsche never stopped screaming:

Pain is not the enemy. Escape is.

Grounded in the Here and Now

Nietzsche’s entire philosophy pivots on one thing: this life.

Not the afterlife. Not some transcendent paradise. Not some fantasy of eternal reward or karmic justice.

This world. This moment. This breath.

So why would he have any time for substances that pull you out of it?

He wouldn’t.

He would hate modern weed culture.

He would mock the glorification of being “spaced out,” of retreating into the clouds as if there’s honor in checking out.

Even the popular fetish around psychedelics—used to chase “spiritual experiences”—would be met with suspicion.

Because what are they really doing?

Helping you transcend the unbearable now?

Helping you feel something bigger than you because what you feel day-to-day is too small?

Nietzsche’s rejection of asceticism in its religious form was clear:

If you deny parts of yourself—your drives, your desires, your instincts—because they’re “sinful,” you’re not strong.

You’re weak.

You’re repressing life. You’re waging war on your nature.

And you’re using God as the reason to mutilate your soul.

Yet he wasn’t against all asceticism.

He admired asceticism that came from strength—from the will to power.

The kind that sharpens. That simplifies. That forges clarity and dominance over the self.

Not denial in the name of God.

Discipline in the name of self-overcoming.

There’s a difference between cutting something out of your life because it’s “wrong”

… and cutting it out because it’s weak.

What About the Edge Cases?

What about someone who takes psychedelics to broaden their perception—without turning it into religion?

To expand their relationship to reality, not escape from it?

Maybe.

But Nietzsche would still ask the question:

Why do you need a chemical to show you something you could wrestle with yourself?

If the Will is strong, why the shortcut?

And that’s the challenge.

Nietzsche would likely reject even “mind-expanding” substances for the same reason he rejected Christianity:

They often replace effort with illusion.

They promise transformation, but too often at the cost of responsibility.

There’s no substitute for the fight.

The honest, brutal, everyday war with yourself.

Not to run away from pain.

But to use it.

To let it burn away the dross and reveal the iron underneath.

Final Word

Pain is not to be escaped.

It’s to be faced.

Used.

Transcended—not by floating above life, but by going deeper into it.

You want to know what Nietzsche would respect?

Not the drinker numbing himself after work.

Not the mystic chasing enlightenment on mushrooms.

Not the believer praying to a sky god for salvation.

He would respect the one who chooses the real.

Who rejects the crutches.

Who faces life as it is—and still says:

Yes.