The Inscrutable Question: Asotia: Definition & Description; Substance Abuse & Addiction, Eph 5:18a
Next comes the predicate adjective that describes the action:
¢swt…a / asotia / - KJV: “excess”; NIV & NASV: “debauchery.”  The lexicons expand upon these:
Spicq, Ceslas.  Theological Lexicon of the New Testament.  Vol. 1.  Trans. By James D. Ernest.  (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 220-221:
¢swt…a.  Literally “lost life.”  Sometimes it means prodigality [Implies reckless or wasteful lavishness threatening to lead to early exhaustion of resources.  Webster’s Ninth], sometimes a dissolute life [Lacking restraint; esp., marked by indulgence in things deemed vices.  Webster’s Ninth].  The transition from one to the other is explained perfectly by Aristotle: “We label as prodigal those who are incontinent and those who become spendthrifts to satisfy their intemperance.  This is why prodigals have such a bad reputation: they have several vices all at once”  (Nicomachean Ethics and Politics 4.1.1120).
Athenaeus / Ath-e-NEE-us / [Deipnosofista… 4.59-67] showed by many examples that the prodigal not only wastes his goods, but loses his time, degrades his faculties and abilities, and consumes him.
Philo /FI-lo/: “The secret desire of gluttons … devotees of a decadent and dissolute way of life who take pleasure in drinking bouts and wild parties”  (On the Special Laws 4.91).  “Drinkers pass their life far from home and hearth; they are enemies of their parents, of their wives, of their children, enemies also of their country, they are also their own enemies.  Life spent on drink and licentiousness is a menace for everyone” (On the Contemplative Life 47).
The New Theyer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v.  ¢swt…a:
The character of an abandoned man, one that cannot be saved; incorrigibleness, an abandoned, dissolute life; profligacy; prodigality.
The Analytical Greek Lexicon, s.v.  ¢swt…a:
The disposition and life of one who is [licentious], abandoned, reckless, dissolute, debauchery.
	15)	You get the drift.  The word makes reference to facilitated wheel-tracks of wickedness that have resulted in an inability of the volition to control the cravings of the body and the person is enslaved by the sinful nature by means of a particular lust pattern.
	16)	The best English word to bring all of this out is dissipation, defined by:
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “dissipation”:
Distraction of the mental faculties from concentration on serious subjects: at first with distraction of attention; but later the frittering away of [one’s] energies or attention upon frivolities and thus gradually passing into the waste of moral or physical powers by undue indulgence in pleasure; an intemperate mode of living.
Ephesians 5:18a - Stop being intoxicated with wine which is dissipation … 
	17)	Keep in mind that this verse is making an appeal to the volition of believers who are involved in an habitual lifestyle that is producing quite a number of problems.
	18)	The three most significant are that they are engaged in a lifestyle motivated by a lust for pleasure, in so doing they are flouting valuable time, and as a result they have become losers in the Angelic Conflict.
	19)	Dissipation emphasizes the problem of alcohol abuse but it is not restricted to this one vice.  As Aristotle wrote, they have several vices all at once.
	20)	These include any of a number of distractions in the field of lasciviousness such as promiscuity, drug addiction, and squandering of resources.
	21)	This requires us to take a short look at the problem of substance abuse and question of addiction.
Substance Abuse and Addiction
1)	First of all I want to make it clear that substance abuse, whether of alcoholic beverages or drugs, is not a disease.  The psychiatric profession, by asserting that bad habits are diseases, has invented for itself several new categories of mental illness for it to treat.  It then contends that these newly created diseases are incurable thus assuring its practitioners a guaranteed source of new patients but whom they allege up front can never fully recover.  Easy money, especially when the medical profession, the insurance companies, and civil law agree with and support the supposition.  The biblical view however, is quite different.
2)	Moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages is not prohibited in Scripture, in fact it is under certain circumstances recommended.
3)	But when alcohol is consumed to the point of drunkenness it becomes a sin and this is condemned by biblical mandate.
4)	Over consumption is detrimental to the body, it causes the soul to submit to the rulership of the sinful nature, and thus has a negative impact on the spiritual life of the believer.
5)	Under the influence of alcohol personality changes occur and these often involve an alteration of behavior patterns and character traits.
6)	Often it is said that who a person really is emerges when they are under the influence of alcohol.  Not exactly.  What emerge are the uninhibited trends and weaknesses of his sinful nature.
7)	We all have different personalities when unrestrained than we do when we function under the filling of the Holy Spirit and His guidance through Bible doctrine.
8)	The Bible teaches that our sinful nature’s lust patterns will be exposed to the clear light of day if we allow ourselves to overindulge in mind-altering substances.
9)	When these substances function as agent provocateurs and allow the sinful nature to rule the soul then the Holy Spirit and the believer’s norms and standards are no longer in control.
10)	Alcohol has now taken control of the body.  The sinful nature has now taken control of the soul.  The spiritual life is in carnal death.