Habits that Handicap: The Menace of Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco, and the Remedy

by Charles Barnes Towns

I see the possibility of many serious results in New York’s board of inebriety plan. These, I think, have their beginning principally in the fact that nothing along the line of classification has been devised or, as far as I know, has been even suggested. If its work were made efficient by means of the adoption of a plan of classification, this board really might become a great boon to society. Suppose that instead of penalizing the man who has been taken before it for inebriety, the board, after intelligent and detailed investigation has shown that the man is probably curable, should provide for him the necessary definite medical treatment to relieve his system from the ill effects of alcohol, and then should bring him into contact with psychological and analytical minds capable of enforcing upon him a realization of the terrible meaning of alcoholism. Without having affected the man’s pride it would send him back to his family and his task with a cool brain and a new point of view. Would not this be a vastly better way of dealing with him than those which are at present followed?

There is no reason why some small charge should not be enforced against such beneficiaries of an enlightened public intelligence who might be found able to meet it. This would accomplish two things: it would reduce the public expense of the system and it would add very greatly to the mental impression left upon the mind of the person for whose benefits the State was working. Furthermore, if a magistrate had once formed the habit of feeling personal interest in individual cases probably his first act after a man had appeared before him would be to send for the accused’s employer and make the truth of the situation clear to him. The mere fact that a man has once been intoxicated should not justify his discharge from employment in which at normal times he is useful and efficient. Both for his sake and for his employer’s, efforts should be made toward reform; for it is not infrequently the case that the man who has lost control through drink is in normal conditions the best man in the office, factory, or workshop. That is one of the chief tragedies of the problem of alcohol.

There is no subject upon which society more sadly needs enlightenment. In this educational process it is probable that the magistrate will be the largest factor. He must realize that he is not society’s instrument of vengeance, but society’s instrument of helpfulness. It should be his aim not to punish, but to protect and preserve. He must realize that scientific knowledge of the problems which confront him is as necessary to his real efficiency as scientific knowledge is to the analytical chemist.

The heart of a conscientious magistrate should thrill with a special sympathy, should be aware of a great responsibility, whenever there appears for judgment in his court a man who for the first time has lost control of himself through drink. To mar this man forever is an easy task; to make him may be difficult, but it is certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility.

The hard drinker who for the first time is haled into court as the consequence of intoxication never is willing to concede either to himself or to others that he needs help. His soul revolts before the mere thought that he has more than temporarily, even momentarily, lost control. He is likely to deny that he has developed a craving for alcohol, and emphatically and indignantly to assert that his drunkenness has been merely incidental to the social spirit, an accident, and in general a thing of no primary importance. The thought that without help there is even a possibility that he may drift from bad to worse is abhorrent to him, and is indignantly repudiated. He will cheerfully admit that many other men of his acquaintance have fallen victims to the effects of alcohol, but he will vehemently deny the possibility of a similar fall on his own part. The magistrate who thoroughly understands all the details of the alcoholic’s psychology, and who is sufficiently adroit of mind and speech to take advantage of this understanding, giving the culprit who has been brought before him every benefit of a carefully and intelligently organized knowledge of alcoholism, could not fail to be one of the most useful of society’s servants and safeguards.

The man or woman taken before a magistrate as the result of alcoholic over-indulgence offers a peculiarly perplexing problem. Society has placed itself in a highly inconsistent position as regards its relation to alcohol. It permits a man to pay it for the privilege to sell alcohol to any one who asks for it, the only restriction being that he may not sell it to a person who already has “had too much.” This leaves the decision as to a customer’s needs and capacity, as well as perils, to be rendered by the man behind the bar. Thus to an extent we intrust daily the destinies of an appreciable proportion of our public to a class of men who certainly have done little to earn general confidence. In nearly every State, if not in all, laws exist imposing penalties upon the dealer in alcohol who sells drink to a person who is already in a state of intoxication; but a careful study of the records of our courts would fail to reveal any large number of liquor dealers who have been charged with this offense, while it is obvious that most persons found upon the public streets or elsewhere in a state of intoxication must have had alcohol served to them at a time when they had already “had enough.” As a matter of fact, the intelligent mind cannot fail to realize that the man who has “had enough” invariably has had too much.

This is only one of many reflections which must occur to the inquiring mind occupying itself with this problem. We have made innumerable laws dealing with, and fondly supposed to control, the sale of alcoholic beverages, but as a matter of fact only one sort of law has ever been devised which possibly could control it, and that law provides for absolute prohibition.

THE NEED OF AN ORGANIZED EFFORT TO HELP THE ALCOHOLIC

If the world wishes to be relieved in any measure from the human waste attributable to alcohol, the time must speedily arrive when municipalities will recognize it as their duty to provide definite medical help for every man who wishes to be freed from the craving for alcohol, and who cannot afford to pay for treatment. It must be recognized that it is society’s duty to hold out this helping hand to every man who has a job and is in danger of losing it through the trap which society itself has set for his feet by authorizing, and thereby encouraging, the sale of alcoholic intoxicants.

Notwithstanding the presence in our social fabric of innumerable charitable bodies, churches, religious societies, and other groups of people who mean well and work hard to aid the unfortunates, it is a fact that nowhere in the United States or, as far as I know, anywhere else is there a single organization which is effectually working along definite and intelligent lines for the preservation of the endangered man who is still curable.