Bearing fully in mind the somewhat restricted picture that any particular case history can give of the whole problem, let us at this point sketch a typical alcoholic personality. This man, after thirty-six years of living and approximately sixteen of drinking, has definitely proved to his own conviction that he cannot use alcohol without abusing it, and that by his own efforts he is equally powerless to stop his indulgence.

While we need not discuss the characteristics of the grandparents, a short description of the father and mother will not be out of place.

The father is a reserved sort of person with a keen mind, though shy, and given to mild periods of despondency due to a lack of success in a business to which he was never suited. His mother is domineering and prudish. He describes her as somewhat suspicious and fearful of the future, and he believes that she was mildly resentful of the quiet life which her marriage compelled her to lead, though she would never admit this and always referred to her husband in the highest terms.

The family life centered about her. Our patient, in speaking of her attitude, says that she spoiled him in a negative sort of way -- nagging him and making him think a great deal too much about himself.

Everything seemed to be reduced to terms of right or wrong.

Furthermore, he was made to feel in one way or another that the world was a difficult place to live in, and that nervousness was the rule rather than the exception. He thinks that the death of his older brother at an early age was partly responsible for her peculiar states of mind. Sometimes she had temper tantrums, which were apt to be directed at him if he were present.

These were followed by remorse and a desire to compensate by being temporarily over-solicitous. He never felt quite sure what her attitude was going to be, and, as his father considered it much easier to agree with whatever she said than to dispute it, he often felt very much misunderstood and friendless.

However, he wishes me to understand that on the whole he received kind and generous treatment, and, while he does not look back on his childhood as something he would like to repeat, he does not feel that it was so very difficult.

Alcoholic drinks were served at the house as a matter of course, without any particular attitude being taken toward the subject. He does not consider that such drinking as he saw in his home has any bearing at all on his present problem.

His elementary schooling was completed without any occurrences worthy of comment having taken place. He went to boarding school, where he mixed well with the other boys, though he had a distinct feeling of inferiority which he thinks now came from being less mature as well as from a lack of ability in athletics.

As he was small and not very strong, the others did not hold this against him, but nevertheless he was envious and admired greatly those who were more successful than he. There was little difficulty if any with the faculty, as his work was above the minimum required for passing and his conduct was somewhat better than the average, though he assures me that he was by no means a goody-goody.

Them was no particular temptation to drink while at school. Three or four of his friends did so during the vacations, but it was so obviously done in an effort to be smart that he did not feel the least urge to imitate them.

In college his first two years were moderate in all directions, in spite of the freedom that he felt in getting away from school. His puritanical prejudices did not yield immediately to his newly acquired liberty.

Furthermore he was not overburdened with money, and as a result he associated primarily with one or two rather conservative individuals who had been his intimates at school. He made friends easily despite his shyness.

Eventually he joined a fraternity, and it was this influence more than any other that started him drinking. However, he does not hold his fraternity or the club system in general responsible, as them was no drinking allowed in the house and them were a few members at least who were total abstainers and more who drank in moderation.

Nevertheless the friendships that he made at this time resulted in many trips to a neighboring small city, which invariably ended in drinking to excess.

At this point it might be well to state that he is not conscious of ever having had any trouble with his sex life. To be sure, the information he received on the subject from his family was scanty, but his friends supplied this deficiency rather adequately and in plenty of time to prevent any morbid introspection.

Of course at this period drinking did not seem to be any problem to him whatsoever. Custom soon adapted his physical system to it, and he had few hangovers. He maintained his ability to enjoy non-alcoholic occasions, though he noted a slightly progressive decline in this respect during his senior year.

It was then, too, that he first began to experience nervousness, though on only one occasion did he notice the sedative effects of alcohol. This was inadvertent, a prolonged spree having been planned in advance to celebrate the end of examinations. It made a distinct impression on him, however ("that wonderful feeling," as he expressed it, "of being picked out of the depths so quickly in the morning"), but he did not deliberately use alcohol as medicine until some months later.

He was in no sense an alcoholic at any time during his college career, nor was there any reason to believe from his conduct or from his mental attitude that he would ever become one. He said there were several boys who gave more evidence of becoming drunkards than he did, though as far as he knows only one lived up to expectations.

Upon graduation he enlisted in the aviation corps. He did not go overseas, but as he chose a particularly dangerous branch of the service he quite naturally had no feeling of inferiority in regard to his war record. He enjoyed flying and does not remember that he was ever particularly frightened by it.

After fatal accidents, which happened often enough at the flying field, he became temporarily nervous and apprehensive, but to no greater extent than his brother officers. He thinks that his nerves suffered relatively little from his war-time experiences, but, as his excessive drinking began shortly after his discharge from the army, he is perfectly willing to admit that this may not be so.

During this period he drank all that he could get his hands on, but except on one or two occasions this was never very much.

While in the service he married a girl to whom he had long been attached and who has since made him a very good wife, the only source of friction being his abnormal drinking. Even here he feels that she has been, to use his own words, "a damn good sport."

An analysis of his married life seems to disclose nothing to excuse his exaggerated indulgence in alcohol. He thinks if he were single it would be worse, if that were possible.

After the war he moved to another city to enter a business that was soon to prove extremely successful. This gave him a superficial self-assurance which he unfortunately misused. Almost immediately he became associated with a "country club" crowd who spent most of their spare time drinking. While in the beginning he "carried" what he drank pretty well, he became increasingly nervous on the "morning after," and within a year of his discharge from the army he was bracing himself by pouring two fingers of gin into his coffee at breakfast.

Furthermore he was sneaking additional drinks at the weekend parties -- a totally unnecessary performance, as almost all his friends were drinking openly a great deal more than they could hold. Sunday afternoons he generally became intoxicated again, and it was not long before he was decidedly under the influence of liquor from Friday night until Monday morning. This naturally required an additional dose of "medicine" to get him back to the office.

Soon he found that, if a drink at breakfast helped out the morning, another one at lunch saved the afternoon. So, slowly but surely, with infrequent periods on the wagon which were invariably terminated prematurely, he arrived at a state where one drink meant a two or three-day debauch.

This would have cost him his job but for the leniency of his employer and his own ability as a salesman during his sober periods. I say "sober periods" because he felt that, while some business success could be attributed to artificial conviviality, he would have accomplished a great deal more in the long run if he had let the other fellow do all the drinking.