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- The Common Sense of Drinking (1930)
The Common Sense of Drinking (1930)
- By Misc Author
- Published 01/2/2007
- Alcohol
-
Rating:
What is a "drunkard," "inebriate," or "alcoholic ?" In the use of alcohol as a beverage there is a descending scale of mental as well as physical reaction, increasingly pathological, beginning with almost total abstinence and ending with delirium tremens, alcoholic dementia, and death.
Just where on this scale chronic alcoholism begins is open to a variety of opinion, but for practical working purposes I draw the dividing line between those to whom a night's sleep habitually represents the
end of an alcoholic occasion and those to whom it is only an unusually long period of abstention.
The former class, which will be referred to as normal, includes the man who limits himself to a casual glass of beer, as well as the man who is
intoxicated every evening.
But at worst they are hard drinkers, going soberly about their business in the daytime, seeking escape from social rather than subjective suppressions, and to be definitely distinguished from the morning drinkers, who are, to all intents and purposes, chronic alcoholics, inebriates, or drunkards.
There are normal men who occasionally indulge in a premeditated debauch, and who sometimes start the next day with a drink; but, by and large, the men who can drink and remain psychologically integrated avoid it the next day until evening (midday social events excepted).
More than one drunkard has told me that the first drink "the morning after"' was by all odds the best of all. They say it makes them feel as if they were coming back to life, as if they were no longer going crazy, and so forth.
Such sentiments as these are absolutely incomprehensible to the normal drinker, to whom the idea of an "eye-opener" is almost always repulsive, no matter how much liquor he may have had before going to bed.
I recognize, of course, that there is a small group of men who
drink slowly and steadily day in and day out without any apparent psychic deterioration.
Physically, they almost always break down in the long run, but, as this book does not deal with the physiological side of drinking, we shall disregard them except to say that their drinking is so methodical, their systems are so adapted to it, that as far as pleasure goes it does
little more than bring them up to "par," actually a state somewhat below that in which they would be if they did not drink at all.
If by chance they want to get a real "kick," they have to drink a prodigious quantity. Then there is a very much larger group than the one just referred to, who from time to time go on a premeditated spree, such as a class reunion or a New Year's week-end, and yet who by no stretch of the imagination can be considered alcoholics.
Lastly, there are a very few exceptions to the general rule who do take a drink the next morning to lessen the punishment resulting from a hard night, but who do not increase the dosage as time goes on.
In spite of these exceptions, however, I think we may be justified in making the statement that those who can use alcohol successfully generally terminate the drinking of any particular occasion when they go to bed at night.
On awakening, such sickness as alcohol may have caused them is of the body; their unimpaired nervous system sets up no cry for more. They are content to pay the price of their "good time" because the price is not unendurable; it has not changed much, if any, from their early drinking days.
But the drunkard with his nerves on edge is in a different plight. Once he has taken a drink he is quite rightly said to be "off again." When his friends are going to their offices, enduring such hangovers as they may have, he is back at the "speakeasy."
If he appears at his work at all, it is only after he has been heavily "braced" to avoid the nervousness and depression of a "morning after," which he has become too cowardly to face. At lunch time he imbibes again to avoid the hardships of the afternoon.
At five o'clock he can hardly wait to shake up his cocktails, and by late evening he is drunk again. Sooner or later, depending upon his particular stage of disintegration, he is unable to carry on his business at all until
he has passed through a somewhat painful period of "drying out."
Shortly after such a recovery the cycle recommences, with the alcoholic periods becoming longer and more intense. The resulting worry and feeling of guilt give the mind no rest when sober, in consequence of which these intervals become shorter and the nervous system receives no chance at all for recuperation.
The victim is caught in an increasingly vicious circle. Drunkenness, acute nervous hangover, remorse, feelings of inferiority; then drunkenness again. A sanitarium may check temporarily the outward expression of this state of mind, but the inner urge continues to exist.
Just where on this scale chronic alcoholism begins is open to a variety of opinion, but for practical working purposes I draw the dividing line between those to whom a night's sleep habitually represents the
end of an alcoholic occasion and those to whom it is only an unusually long period of abstention.
The former class, which will be referred to as normal, includes the man who limits himself to a casual glass of beer, as well as the man who is
intoxicated every evening.
But at worst they are hard drinkers, going soberly about their business in the daytime, seeking escape from social rather than subjective suppressions, and to be definitely distinguished from the morning drinkers, who are, to all intents and purposes, chronic alcoholics, inebriates, or drunkards.
There are normal men who occasionally indulge in a premeditated debauch, and who sometimes start the next day with a drink; but, by and large, the men who can drink and remain psychologically integrated avoid it the next day until evening (midday social events excepted).
More than one drunkard has told me that the first drink "the morning after"' was by all odds the best of all. They say it makes them feel as if they were coming back to life, as if they were no longer going crazy, and so forth.
Such sentiments as these are absolutely incomprehensible to the normal drinker, to whom the idea of an "eye-opener" is almost always repulsive, no matter how much liquor he may have had before going to bed.
I recognize, of course, that there is a small group of men who
drink slowly and steadily day in and day out without any apparent psychic deterioration.
Physically, they almost always break down in the long run, but, as this book does not deal with the physiological side of drinking, we shall disregard them except to say that their drinking is so methodical, their systems are so adapted to it, that as far as pleasure goes it does
little more than bring them up to "par," actually a state somewhat below that in which they would be if they did not drink at all.
If by chance they want to get a real "kick," they have to drink a prodigious quantity. Then there is a very much larger group than the one just referred to, who from time to time go on a premeditated spree, such as a class reunion or a New Year's week-end, and yet who by no stretch of the imagination can be considered alcoholics.
Lastly, there are a very few exceptions to the general rule who do take a drink the next morning to lessen the punishment resulting from a hard night, but who do not increase the dosage as time goes on.
In spite of these exceptions, however, I think we may be justified in making the statement that those who can use alcohol successfully generally terminate the drinking of any particular occasion when they go to bed at night.
On awakening, such sickness as alcohol may have caused them is of the body; their unimpaired nervous system sets up no cry for more. They are content to pay the price of their "good time" because the price is not unendurable; it has not changed much, if any, from their early drinking days.
But the drunkard with his nerves on edge is in a different plight. Once he has taken a drink he is quite rightly said to be "off again." When his friends are going to their offices, enduring such hangovers as they may have, he is back at the "speakeasy."
If he appears at his work at all, it is only after he has been heavily "braced" to avoid the nervousness and depression of a "morning after," which he has become too cowardly to face. At lunch time he imbibes again to avoid the hardships of the afternoon.
At five o'clock he can hardly wait to shake up his cocktails, and by late evening he is drunk again. Sooner or later, depending upon his particular stage of disintegration, he is unable to carry on his business at all until
he has passed through a somewhat painful period of "drying out."
Shortly after such a recovery the cycle recommences, with the alcoholic periods becoming longer and more intense. The resulting worry and feeling of guilt give the mind no rest when sober, in consequence of which these intervals become shorter and the nervous system receives no chance at all for recuperation.
The victim is caught in an increasingly vicious circle. Drunkenness, acute nervous hangover, remorse, feelings of inferiority; then drunkenness again. A sanitarium may check temporarily the outward expression of this state of mind, but the inner urge continues to exist.
