Alcohol

Apologies if this has been done to death before (I did search and didn't come up with much) but could I please get some pragmatic dharma advice about low level alcohol consumption and progress on the path?

I don't drink very much. I don't like wine or spirits, so it tends to be a pint of beer or two with a friend, usually with a meal, about once a week, sometimes more, and often less. It's an important part of my social life, but not something that I would prioritise over making progress with my practice. Since getting back from retreat last month, I have avoided alcohol completely, not drinking over Christmas and New Year and now I need to decide whether to make this a long term thing.

Beth Resnick-Folk, my teacher, advised me to stop drinking or at least tone it down until I get the next path (I am in equanimity at the moment). "Then you can have a party!" she said, admitting that she wasn't the best person to ask about drinking anyway, because she doesn't drink for reasons of digestion.

Basically, I don't want to be a sila prig and reject something I do with friends for the sake of dogma, but neither do I want to miss the insight boat for the sake of a couple of beers.

Advice please!

You don't trust Beth's advice? I would.

I do trust Beth's advice! But as I made clear in the post above, she said herself that she didn't think she was the best person to ask!

So, I am off the booze until I hit next path, but after that is an open question that I wanted to explore here

Sounds like you're a moderate drinker. If you had an alcohol problem I'd suggest to get help and cut down or quit drinking altogether, path or no path.

But what you describe sounds pretty normal. My advice: as long as you don't get drunk, change your judgement or mental or emotional health, you should be able to make progress. Beth's advice sounds awesome.

Also, alcohol definitely messes with desire, aversion and delusion patterns, so even if u only drink 2 pints of beer per week and you don't have an alcohol problem, depending on how fast alcohol enters ur system, it can definitely feed those unwholesome patterns and alter them to the point of losing momentum to reach a new path. The result: more tension, clinging, energy blocks, pain, etc.

What to do after u hit the next path? In my opinion, I think its a question of just being healthy (practice or no practice). Want to be healthy? don't get drunk