"Well,"—puff-puff—"these little suspicions are characteristic of the disease. The man who is suffering from it says that these feelings of resistance cannot arise in himself. Therefore, they must be caused by somebody. Who more likely then than by those who are in social contact with him?"
"I see that and it's very true. Perhaps truer than you can know!" Lothian said with a rather bitter smile. "But how does all this explain what we were talking about at first. The 'Craving' and all that?"
"I am coming to it now. I had to make the other postulate first. In this way. We have seen in this suspicion—one of many instances—that an entirely fictitious world is created in the mind of a man by alcohol. It is one in which he must live. It is peopled with unrealities and phantasies. As he goes on drinking, this world becomes more and more complex. Then, when a man becomes in a state which we call 'chronic alcoholism' a new Ego, a new self is created. This new personality fails to recognise that it was ever anything else—mark this well—and proceeds to harmonise everything with the new state. And now, as the new consciousness, the new Ego, is the compelling mind of the moment, the Inebriate is terrified at any weakening in it. The preservation of this new Ego seems to be his only guard against the imagined pitfalls and treacheries. Therefore he does all in his power to strengthen his defences. He continues alcohol, because it is to him the only possible agent by which he can keep grasp of his identity. For him it is no poison, no excess. It sustains his very being. His stomach doesn't crave for it, as the ignorant will tell you. It has no sensual appeal. Lots of inebriates hate the taste of alcohol. In advanced stages it is quite a matter of indifference to a man what form of alcohol he drinks. If he can't get whiskey, he will drink methylated spirit. He takes the drug simply because of the necessity for the maintenance of a condition the falsity of which he is unable to appreciate."
Lothian lay thinking.
The lucid statement was perfectly clear to him and absorbingly interesting in its psychology. He was a profound psychologist himself, though he did not apply his theories personally, a spectator of others, turning away from the contemplation of himself during the past years in secret terror of what he might find there.
How new this was, yet how true. It shed a flood of light upon so much that he had failed to understand!
"Thank you," he said simply. "I feel certain that what you say is true."
Morton Sims nodded with pleasure. "Perhaps nothing is quite true," he said, "but I think we are getting as near truth in these matters as we can. What we have to do, is to let the whole of the public know too. When once it is thoroughly understood what Inebriety is, then the remedy will be applied, the only remedy."
"And that is?"
"I'll tell you our theories at my next visit. You must be quiet now."