FOOTNOTE:
[8] Alcoholism is further complicated by the fact that a habit of physical craving is formed, which as a rule cannot be overcome by mental treatment alone. This craving, fortunately, can now be eradicated by medicinal means. Indeed, patients of mine have been cured of all desire for alcohol in about one week as a rule. The patient is then in somewhat the same condition as a man who has never tasted alcohol, and he will have no craving for alcohol thereafter, unless he deliberately drinks it again. Herein, however, we see the importance of the psychic factor, for should the cured alcoholic begin again to take alcohol, either because he thinks that he has attained self control and can do so, or because he finds abstinence difficult on social grounds, he will almost inevitably regress to his old condition of uncontrolled desire, no matter how long has elapsed since he was cured of it. The same causes which originally led him to excess, viz., his mental complexes, are still present and again produce similar results. Of course, a very large proportion of those who have been cured by medicinal treatment do not relapse, because they have sufficient common sense not to experiment with themselves. In the other cases, however, the only hope of a permanent cure consists in following up the physical treatment with mental treatment, i.e., analysis.
On the other hand, in most cases of drug taking a medicinal cure is generally sufficient, for there is no “social urge” to taking drugs as there is in the case of alcohol, and once the craving has been cured, the tendency to experiment again is the exception rather than the rule. But even here it is found that any indulgence in the drug, however slight, will again produce in the individual his old craving. He has found a previous path of narcissistic regression and will inevitably follow it, for though the craving had been eradicated the complexes remain. There are many potential alcoholics and potential drug-takers in the world, but they will never know it unless unfortunate chance induces them to open that particular channel of regression.