Abstainers live longer than moderate drinkers.
Dr. Kellogg, the founder of the famous Battle Creek Sanitarium, points out that strychnine, quinine, and many other drugs are oxidized in the body but surely cannot be called foods. The following reasons for not considering alcohol a food are taken from his writings:—
"1. A habitual user of alcohol has an intense craving for his accustomed dram. Without it he is entirely unfitted for business. One never experiences such an insane craving for bread, potatoes, or any other particular article of food.
"2. By continuous use the body acquires a tolerance for alcohol. That is, the amount which may be imbibed and the amount required to produce the characteristic effects first experienced gradually increase until very great quantities are sometimes required to satisfy the craving which its habitual use often produces. This is never the case with true foods.... Alcohol behaves in this regard just as does opium or any other drug. It has no resemblance to a food.
"3. When alcohol is withdrawn from a person who has been accustomed to its daily use, most distressing effects are experienced.... Who ever saw a man's hand trembling or his nervous system unstrung because he could not get a potato or a piece of cornbread for breakfast? In this respect, also, alcohol behaves like opium, cocaine, or any other enslaving drug.
"4. Alcohol lessens the appreciation and the value of brain and nerve activity, while food reënforces nervous and mental energy.
"5. Alcohol as a protoplasmic poison lessens muscular power, whereas food increases energy and endurance.
"6. Alcohol lessens the power to endure cold. This is true to such a marked degree that its use by persons accompanying Arctic expeditions is absolutely prohibited. Food, on the other hand, increases ability to endure cold. The temperature after taking food is raised. After taking alcohol, the temperature, as shown by the thermometer, is lowered.
"7. Alcohol cannot be stored in the body for future use, whereas all food substances can be so stored.
"8. Food burns slowly in the body, as it is required to satisfy the body's needs. Alcohol is readily oxidized and eliminated, the same as any other oxidizable drug."