Religion: Alcoholics Anomalous

A drunkard is not “a moral and social outcast” — though many church people have taken that unchristian view, says the Rev. Alson J. Smith of St. Paul’s Method ist Church, Brooklyn. An alcoholic is “someone who could be helped and [is] worth helping.”

The church, said the Rev. Mr. Smith, has “sought a solution in law and let Alcoholics Anonymous take over the curing of the alcoholic by religious therapy —which is really the church’s business.”

Mr. Smith suggested: “The alcoholic is a sensitive person . . . who feels more strongly than other people the ills of the world and the tensions of life. . . . The ultimate solution is to raise the whole level of human existence so people don’t need this escape.”