Lapses of this kind are not frequent, and they are regarded by the superintendent as part of the means of restoration which the institution affords; since they aid him in destroying a fatal self-confidence, and in inculcating the idea that a patient who lapses must never think of giving up the struggle, but renew it the instant he can gain the least foothold of self-control.
The system of treatment pursued here is founded on the expectation that the patient and the institution will co-operate. If a man does not desire to be reclaimed, and such a desire cannot be awakened within him, the institution can do no more than keep him sober while he remains an inmate of it. There will, perhaps, one day be in every State an asylum for incurable drunkards, wherein they will be permanently detained, and compelled to live temperately, and earn their subsistence by suitable labor. But this is not such an institution. Here all is voluntary. The co-operation of the patient is assumed; and when no desire to be restored can be roused, the experiment is not continued longer than a few months.
The two grand objects aimed at by the superintendent are, to raise the tone of the bodily health, and to fortify the weakened will. The means employed vary somewhat in each case. The superintendent designs to make a particular study of each individual; he endeavors to win his confidence, to adapt the treatment to his peculiar disposition, and to give him just the aid he needs. As the number of patients increases, this will become more difficult, if it does not become impossible. The more general features of the system are all that can be communicated to others, and these I will endeavor briefly to indicate.
It is interesting to observe the applicants for admission, when they enter the office of the Asylum, accompanied generally by a relative or friend. Some reach the building far gone in intoxication, having indulged in one last farewell debauch; or having drunk a bottle of whiskey for the purpose of screwing their courage to the sticking-point of entering the Asylum. A clergyman whom this institution restored told me that he reached Binghamton in the evening, and went to bed drunk; and before going to the Asylum the next morning he had to fortify his system and his resolve by twelve glasses of brandy. Sometimes the accompanying friend, out of an absurd kind of pity for a poor fellow about to be deprived of his solace, will rather encourage him to drink; and often the relatives of an inebriate can only get him into the institution by keeping him intoxicated until he is safe under its roof. Frequently men arrive emaciated and worn out from weeks or months of hard drinking; and occasionally a man will be brought in suffering from delirium tremens, who will require restraint and watching for several days. Some enter the office in terror, expecting to be immediately led away by a turnkey and locked up. All come with bodies diseased and minds demoralized; for the presence of alcohol in the system lowers the tone of the whole man, body and soul, strengthening every evil tendency, and weakening every good one. And this is the reason why men who are brought here against their will are not to be despaired of. Alcohol may only have suspended the activity of their better nature, which a few weeks of total abstinence may rouse to new life. As the health improves, ambition often revives, the native delicacy of the soul reappears, and the man becomes polite, docile, interested, agreeable, who on entering seemed coarse, stupid, obstinate, and malign.
The new-comer subscribes to the rules, pays his board three months in advance, and surrenders all the rest of his money. The paying in advance is a good thing; it is like paying your passage on going on board ship; the voyager has no care, and nothing to think of, but the proposed object. It is also one more inducement to remain until other motives gain strength.
Many hard drinkers live under the conviction that if they should cease drinking alcoholic liquors suddenly, they would die in a few days. This is a complete error. No "tapering off" is allowed here. Dr. Day discovered years ago that a man who has been drinking a quart of whiskey a day for a long time suffers more if his allowance is reduced to a pint than if he is put at once upon the system of total abstinence. He not only suffers less, but for a shorter time. The clergyman before referred to informed me that, for two years and a half before entering the Asylum, he drank a quart of brandy daily, and he felt confident that he would die if he should suddenly cease. He reached Binghamton drunk; he went to bed that evening drunk; he drank twelve glasses of brandy the next morning before eleven o'clock; he went up to the Asylum saturated with brandy, expecting to make the preliminary arrangements for his admission, then return to the hotel, and finish the day drinking. But precisely at that point Albert Day laid his hand upon him, and marked him for his own. Dr. Day quietly objected to his return to the town, sent for his trunk, caused the tavern bill to be paid, and cut off his brandy at once and totally. For forty-eight hours the patient craved the accustomed stimulant intensely, and he was only enabled to sleep by the assistance of bromide of potassium. On the third day the craving ceased, and he assured me that he never felt it again. Other morbid experiences he had, but not that; and now, after two years of abstinence, he enjoys good health, has no desire for drink, and is capable of extraordinary exertions. Other patients, however, informed me that they suffered a morbid craving for two or three weeks. But all agreed that the sudden discontinuance of the stimulant gave them less inconvenience than they had anticipated, and was in no degree dangerous. It is, indeed, most surprising to see how soon the system begins to rally when once it is relieved of the inimical influence. Complete recovery, of course, is a slow and long effort of nature; but the improvement in the health, feelings, and appearance of patients, after only a month's residence upon that breezy hill, is very remarkable.
There is an impression in the country that the inmates of such asylums as this undergo some mysterious process, and take unknown medicines, which have power to destroy the desire for strong drink. Among the quack medicines of the day is a bottled humbug, pretending to have such power. It is also supposed by some that the plan which Captain Marryat mentions is efficacious,—that of confining a drunken sailor for several days to a diet of beef and brandy. Accounts have gone the rounds of the papers, of another system that consists in saturating with brandy every article of food of which the inebriate partakes. Patients occasionally arrive at the Asylum who expect to be treated in some such way; and when a day or two passes without anything extraordinary or disagreeable happening, they inquire, with visible apprehension, "When the treatment is going to begin." In this sense of the word, there is no treatment here. In all nature there is no substance that destroys or lessens a drunkard's desire for intoxicating liquors; and there is no such thing as permanently disgusting him with brandy by giving him more brandy than he wants. A drunkard's drinking is not a thing of mere appetite; his whole system craves stimulation; and he would drink himself into perdition while loathing the taste of the liquor. This Asylum simply gives its inmates rest, regimen, amusement, society, information. It tries to restore the health and renew the will, and both by rational means.
Merely entering an establishment like this is a long step toward deliverance. It is a confession! It is a confession to the patient's family and friends, to the inmates of the Asylum, and, above all, to himself, that he has lost his self-control, and cannot get it back without assistance. He comes here for that assistance. Every one knows he comes for that. They are all in the same boat. The pot cannot call the kettle black. False pride, and all the thin disguises of self-love, are laid aside. The mere fact of a man's being an inmate of an inebriate asylum is a declaration to all about him that he has been a drunkard, and even a very bad drunkard; for the people here know, from their own bitter experience, that a person cannot bring himself to make such a confession until, by many a lapse, he has been brought to despair of self-recovery. Many of these men were thinking of the asylum for years before they could summon courage to own that they had lost the power to resist a physical craving. But when once they have made the agonizing avowal by entering the asylum, it costs them no great effort to reveal the details of their case to hearers who cannot reproach them; and, besides relating their own experience without reserve, they are relieved, encouraged, and instructed by hearing the similar experience of others. All have the same object, the same peril, the same dread, the same hope, and each aids the rest as students aid one another in the same college.
In a community like this, Public Opinion is the controlling force. That subtle, resistless power is always aiding or frustrating the object for which the community exists. Public Opinion sides with a competent superintendent, and serves him as an assiduous, omnipresent police. Under the coercive system once attempted here, the public opinion of the Asylum applauded a man who smuggled a bottle of whiskey into the building, and invited his friends into his room to drink it. An inmate who should now attempt such a crime would be shunned by the best two thirds of the whole institution. One of their number, suddenly overcome by temptation, who should return to the Asylum drunk, they would all receive as cordially as before; but they would regard with horror or contempt a man who should bring temptation into the building, and place it within reach of those who had fled hither to avoid it.
The French have a verb,—se dépayser,—to uncountry one's self, to get out of the groove, to drop undesirable companions and forsake haunts that are too alluring, by going away for a while, and, in returning, not resuming the old friends and habits. How necessary this is to some of the slaves of alcohol every one knows. To many of them restoration is impossible without it, and not difficult with it. To all such, what a refuge is a well-conducted asylum like this! Merely being here, out of the coil of old habits, haunts, pleasures, comrades, temptations, which had proved too much for them a thousand times,—merely being away for a time, so that they can calmly survey the scenes they have left and the life they have led,—is itself half the victory.