“As good be melancholy still, as drunken beasts and beggars.” So says old Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, and there are few who will not subscribe to his creed. The same author quaintly, but justly, remarks, “If a drunken man gets a child, it will never, likely, have a good brain.” Dr. Darwin, a great authority on all subjects connected with life, says, that he never knew a glutton affected with the gout, who was not at the same time addicted to liquor. He also observes, “it is remarkable that all the diseases from drinking spirituous or fermented liquors are liable to become hereditary, even to the third generation, gradually increasing, if the cause be continued, till the family becomes extinct.”[8]
We need not endeavour to trace further the remote causes of drunkenness. A drunkard is rarely able to recall the particular circumstances which made him so. The vice creeps upon him insensibly, and he is involved in its fetters before he is aware. It is enough that we know the proximate cause, and also the certain consequences. One thing is certain, that a man who addicts himself to intemperance, can never be said to be sound in mind or body. The former is a state of partial insanity, while the effects of the liquor remain; and the latter is always more or less diseased in its actions.
CHAPTER III.
PHENOMENA OF DRUNKENNESS.
The consequences of drunkenness are dreadful, but the pleasures of getting drunk are certainly ecstatic. While the illusion lasts, happiness is complete; care and melancholy are thrown to the wind; and Elysium, with all its glories, descends upon the dazzled imagination of the drinker.
Some authors have spoken of the pleasure of being completely drunk; this, however, is not the most exquisite period. The time is when a person is neither “drunken nor sober, but neighbour to both,” as Bishop Andrews says in his “Ex—ale—tation of Ale.” The moment is when the ethereal emanations begin to float around the brain—when the soul is commencing to expand its wings and rise from earth—when the tongue feels itself somewhat loosened in the mouth, and breaks the previous taciturnity, if any such existed.
What are the sensations of incipient drunkenness? First, an unusual serenity prevails over the mind, and the soul of the votary is filled with a placid satisfaction. By degrees he is sensible of a soft and not unmusical humming in his ears, at every pause of the conversation. He seems, to himself, to wear his head lighter than usual upon his shoulders. Then a species of obscurity, thinner than the finest mist, passes before his eyes, and makes him see objects rather indistinctly. The lights begin to dance and appear double. A gaiety and warmth are felt at the same time about the heart. The imagination is expanded, and filled with a thousand delightful images. He becomes loquacious, and pours forth, in enthusiastic language, the thoughts which are born, as it were, within him.
Now comes a spirit of universal contentment with himself and all the world. He thinks no more of misery: it is dissolved in the bliss of the moment. This is the acmé of the fit—the ecstasy is now perfect. As yet the sensorium is in tolerable order: it is only shaken, but the capability of thinking with accuracy still remains. About this time, the drunkard pours out all the secrets of his soul. His qualities, good or bad, come forth without reserve; and now, if at any time, the human heart may be seen into. In a short period, he is seized with a most inordinate propensity to talk nonsense, though he is perfectly conscious of doing so. He also commits many foolish things, knowing them to be foolish. The power of volition, that faculty which keeps the will subordinate to the judgment, seems totally weakened. The most delightful time seems to be that immediately before becoming very talkative. When this takes place, a man turns ridiculous, and his mirth, though more boisterous, is not so exquisite. At first the intoxication partakes of sentiment, but, latterly, it becomes merely animal.
After this the scene thickens. The drunkard’s imagination gets disordered with the most grotesque conceptions. Instead of moderating his drink, he pours it down more rapidly than ever: glass follows glass with reckless energy. His head becomes perfectly giddy. The candles burn blue, or green, or yellow; and where there are perhaps only three on the table, he sees a dozen. According to his temperament, he is amorous, or musical, or quarrelsome. Many possess a most extraordinary wit; and a great flow of spirits is a general attendant. In the latter stages, the speech is thick, and the use of the tongue in a great measure lost. His mouth is half open, and idiotic in the expression; while his eyes are glazed, wavering, and watery. He is apt to fancy that he has offended some one of the company, and is ridiculously profuse with his apologies. Frequently he mistakes one person for another, and imagines that some of those before him are individuals who are, in reality, absent or even dead. The muscular powers are, all along, much affected: this indeed happens before any great change takes place in the mind, and goes on progressively increasing. He can no longer walk with steadiness, but totters from side to side. The limbs become powerless, and inadequate to sustain his weight. He is, however, not always sensible of any deficiency in this respect: and while exciting mirth by his eccentric motions, imagines that he walks with the most perfect steadiness. In attempting to run, he conceives that he passes over the ground with astonishing rapidity. To his distorted eyes all men, and even inanimate nature itself, seem to be drunken, while he alone is sober. Houses reel from side to side as if they had lost their balance; trees and steeples nod like tipsy Bacchanals; and the very earth seems to slip from under his feet, and leave him walking and floundering upon the air. The last stage of drunkenness is total insensibility. The man tumbles perhaps beneath the table, and is carried away in a state of stupor to his couch. In this condition he is said to be dead drunk.
When the drunkard is put to bed, let us suppose that his faculties are not totally absorbed in apoplectic stupor; let us suppose that he still possesses consciousness and feeling, though these are both disordered; then begins “the tug of war;” then comes the misery which is doomed to succeed his previous raptures. No sooner is his head laid upon the pillow, than it is seized with the strongest throbbing. His heart beats quick and hard against the ribs. A noise like the distant fall of a cascade, or rushing of a river, is heard in his ears: sough—sough—sough, goes the sound. His senses now become more drowned and stupified. A dim recollection of his carousals, like a shadowy and indistinct dream, passes before the mind. He still hears, as in echo, the cries and laughter of his companions. Wild fantastic fancies accumulate thickly around the brain. His giddiness is greater than ever; and he feels as if in a ship tossed upon a heaving sea. At last he drops insensibly into a profound slumber.