Can Jehovah’s Witnesses Enjoy Alcohol Responsibly?

Yes. Jehovah’s Witnesses may drink alcohol in moderation, and their publications call wine a gift from God. They set no fixed limit, but they treat drunkenness as a serious sin: a Witness who keeps getting drunk and does not repent can be removed from the congregation.

Both halves come from the same care. Wine belongs among God’s good gifts, the “wine that makes man’s heart rejoice,” and the same publications that say so ask Witnesses to drink less, or not at all, when a brother might stumble, and to respect those who never drink. The glass is lifted with a cheerful heart and a clear head.

What do Jehovah’s Witnesses teach about alcohol?

The Witnesses’ own answer to whether drinking alcohol is a sin begins: “It is not a sin to drink alcohol in moderation.” It describes wine as “a gift from God that can make life more enjoyable,” citing Psalm 104:15, which in their New World Translation speaks of “wine that makes man’s heart rejoice,” and Ecclesiastes 9:7: “Go, eat your food with rejoicing, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart.”

Witness publications point out that Jesus drank wine (Luke 7:34) and that at a wedding in Cana he turned water into wine, so that the director of the feast told the bridegroom, “You have saved the fine wine until now” (John 2:10). Paul told Timothy to “take a little wine for the sake of your stomach” (1 Timothy 5:23), which Witnesses read as the Bible recognizing that wine has medical uses.

Alcohol is not among the Witnesses’ food restrictions. Their food rules come from the apostles’ letter in Acts 15:29, which tells believers to abstain from blood, from what is strangled and from things sacrificed to idols; it says nothing against wine.

Do Jehovah’s Witnesses use wine at the Memorial?

Yes. At their yearly Memorial of Christ’s death, which they also call the Lord’s Evening Meal, Witnesses use unleavened bread and “plain red wine, not grape juice or wine that has been sweetened, fortified, or spiced.” Their explanation of the observance says that churches that use grape juice do so “because of their unscriptural prohibition against consuming alcohol.”

Most Witnesses do not drink from the cup. Only those who believe they are among the 144,000 called to rule with Christ in heaven partake of the bread and wine; the rest attend and give thanks. In 2025, 20,635,015 people attended the Memorial worldwide, and 24,576 partook.

How much can a Jehovah’s Witness drink?

There is no set number. A 2004 article in The Watchtower says that “there can be no strict rule about how many drinks are too many,” because many factors come into play, and offers a principle instead: “Any amount of alcohol that unduly impairs your judgment and dulls your thinking ability is too much for you personally.”

Witnesses recognize drunkenness by behavior rather than by a person’s passing out. jw.org lists “being disoriented, walking unsteadily, becoming contentious, or having slurred speech.” It adds that someone who never gets drunk can still have a problem, since Jesus warned against hearts “weighed down with overeating and heavy drinking” (Luke 21:34).

The study article “Be Guided by God’s View of Alcohol,” in the December 2023 Watchtower, suggests that each Witness set personal limits: on how much to drink, on how often, “perhaps once a week or moderately during meals,” or on what kind, such as wine or beer “but no hard liquor, not even in mixed drinks.” It notes that some Witnesses choose not to drink at all and asks others to respect that choice without criticizing them.

When do Witnesses not drink at all?

jw.org names three situations: when drinking would cause someone else to stumble, citing Romans 14:21, “It is best not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything over which your brother stumbles”; when the law of the land forbids it, as with a minimum drinking age (Romans 13:1); and when a person cannot control his drinking. For people with alcoholism it calls for “drastic action,” citing Jesus’ words about tearing out an eye or cutting off a hand that makes a person stumble (Matthew 5:29, 30).

The 2004 Watchtower adds more. It says it is best not to drink at all before driving, and that a pregnant woman may choose not to drink because of the danger to the unborn child. It suggests not drinking in front of someone who has had a problem with alcohol or whose conscience objects to it. Pointing to the command that priests drink no wine before entering the tent of meeting (Leviticus 10:9), it tells Witnesses to “avoid drinking alcoholic beverages just before attending Christian meetings, when sharing in the ministry, and when caring for other spiritual responsibilities.”

What happens if a Jehovah’s Witness gets drunk?

Witnesses take seriously Paul’s list of people who “will not inherit God’s Kingdom,” which includes “drunkards” (1 Corinthians 6:10). jw.org names drunkenness, with adultery, murder, domestic abuse and theft, among the sins that could lead to a person’s removal from the congregation.

Elders first try to help the person change. If he “makes a practice of breaking the Bible’s moral code and does not repent, he must be removed from the congregation,” and the elders announce that he is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Witnesses used to call this being disfellowshipped; they now say “removed from the congregation.” Other Witnesses stop socializing with the person, though he may still attend meetings and be greeted there, and he is received back if he repents. Drinking too much can also cost a man a place as an elder or ministerial servant, since Paul required that an overseer be “not a drunkard” and a ministerial servant “not indulging in a lot of wine” (1 Timothy 3:3, 8).

A Canadian case shows how this works. In March 2014 a committee of the Highwood Congregation in Calgary, Alberta, met with Randy Wall, a real estate agent who had been a member since 1980, about his drunkenness. He did not show the remorse the committee looked for and was disfellowshipped. About half of his clients were Witnesses, and his business suffered. He appealed within the organization and then went to court, and in 2018 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the courts had no jurisdiction to review the congregation’s decision.

How do other churches view drinking?

On alcohol, Witnesses stand close to the Catholic Church. The Catechism treats drinking under the virtue of temperance, which “disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine,” and warns that “those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road, at sea, or in the air” (paragraph 2290).

Some Protestant churches ask more of their members than Witnesses do. The United Methodist Church allows its members to drink responsibly, “with deliberate and intentional restraint,” but it starts “with abstinence as faithful witness and as norm for guiding our behavior.” In 2006 the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution expressing “total opposition to the manufacturing, advertising, distributing, and consuming of alcoholic beverages,” and urged that no one who drinks be elected a trustee or committee member of its entities.

Wherever other churches draw the line, Witnesses hold on to both things their Bible says about wine: it is a gift, and it must never rule the one who drinks it. Their own translation gives the gift in a single line: “Go, eat your food with rejoicing, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart” (Ecclesiastes 9:7).

Related reading

• Bible verses about drinking alcohol
• Did Jesus drink wine?
• A Christian reader’s guide to Jehovah’s Witnesses
• What Do Jehovah’s Witnesses Believe?