News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-09-18
ROAD TO DRUNKENNESS
THE EARLY STAGES OF INEBRIETY.
Disease That the Moderate Drinker is
Troubled With.

There are found in all parts OF the
country men and women who use alco-
hol regularly and in limited quantities.
To the casual observer they go on for
years in this state and are apparently
no worse, and finally die at last of some
common disease, leaving the reputation
of having lived what an inebriate would
call an ''ideal life" of moderate drink
ing. Why they drink is not clear. If
they have any reasons it is always sus-
tanned by their unbounded faith in the
capacity to abstain at any time at will.
These cases are inebriates in every
respect except in the prominence and
intensity of the symptoms. There is
no difference between the chronic case
of the lowest type and the highly re-
spectacle, moderate drinker, except one
of degree.
Both are suffering from a positive
physical disease. In one case the dis
order is developed, in the other it is in
the incipient stage. In the latter, from
some obscure reason, the case never
goes on to full development, but is al
ways on the ''border land" awaiting the
action of some exciting cause, which
may or may not be supplied. A repel-
ling power exists, which builds up and
neutralizes the injuries received from
alcohol to a certain extent. 1t is not
will power which makes the difference
between the inebriate and the moderate
drinker. 1t is physiological and path
illogical conditions of the brain and
nervous system, which the possesso1
ascribes to will power. Alcohol cannot
l., MT in.
jury to the nerve centres.
The moderate drinker is always dis
eased, although to the non-expert there
are no clear symptoms or coarse LESSONS
that can be seen. A careful study will
reveal physically an irritable condition
of the heart, with stomach aud digestive
troubles, also changing and disordered
functional activity of all the organs al
times. Physically the disposition,
habits. temper and mental state slowly
and gradually degenerate and become
more unstable. The higher mental
forces drop down or give place to lower
motives and ambitions. No matter
what his position of life may be or his
objects or plans, the moderate use of
alcohol will alter and break down both
physical and psychical energy and pre-
alcohol always die from diseases pro-
voked and stimulated by this drug.
They always transmit a legacy of de-
fective cell energy and exhaustion, which
most readily finds relief IN any alcohol or
narcotic.
- But only a small per cent of moder-
ate drinkers remain so until death. The
disease goes on to full development in
inebriety, in a vast majority of cases.
The boosted will power to stop at all
times is powerless before its peculiar
exciting cause. Those who never go
beyond this moderate use have simply
never been exposed to this peculiar ex-
citing cause. The moderate use of
spirits for lifetime is a mere accident
in the order of nature, and the ability
to stop, resting in the will power, is
popular fallacy. A certain number of
cases have signs of incipient phthisis,
which may never burst out into the full
disease. A small number of cases ex-
posed to smallpox, or any infectious
diseases, never take it; but these are the
rare exceptions, whose causes are IN
known, from which no deduction can be
drawn. Moderate drinking that does
not go on to inebriety is also the excep-
ton. The chain of exciting causes
which bring on these stages may or may
not be understood, but they always break
out sooner or later in the history of the
case. Practically, the study of this
early stage of inebriety is of the utmost
value in the treatment. Here remedial
measures can be made of the greatest
avail in checking and preventing any
further progress of the disease. When
inebriety is fully recognized as a dis
eased condition, requiring study and
medical care, this prodromic period Of
moderate drinking will receive the at
tention it deserves. In the meantime
as scientific men, we must continue tt
call attention to this early beginning o
inebriety, so full of indications and hint
of the march of disease, whose progress
and determination can often be pre-
dicted with positive certainty.-JOurna
Of Ine6rjety.