Habitual drinking has a prominent feature that no one can dispute. This fact pertains to the consistent increase in appetite. There are exceptions, as in the action of nearly every rule, but the almost invariable result of the habit we have mentioned is, as we have said, a steady growth of appetite for the stimulant imbibed. Anyone familiar with the various functional and organic derangements that invariably follow the continued introduction of alcohol into the body will hardly question that this is a consequence of certain morbid changes in the physical condition produced by the alcohol itself.
We now want to focus on the fact, not its cause. Initially satisfied with a single glass of wine at dinner, the man gradually develops an appetite for more, eventually agreeing to a second glass. The increase of desire may be very slow, but it goes on surely until, in the end, a whole bottle will scarcely suffice, with far too many, to meet its imperious demands. The same applies to the use of any other form of alcoholic drink.
Now, there are men so constituted that they are able, for a long series of years, or even for a whole lifetime, to hold this appetite within a certain limit of indulgence. They are able to limit their indulgence to a certain extent. They ultimately suffer from physical ailments, which undoubtedly result from the prolonged contact of alcoholic poison with the delicate structures of the body. These ailments are often of a painful nature and shorten the term of their natural lives. Despite this, they continue to drink without experiencing an overpowering increase in their appetite. They do not become abandoned drunkards.
No man is safe who drinks. ----------------------
But no man who begins the use of alcohol in any form can tell what, in the end, is going to have an effect on his body or mind. Thousands and tens of thousands, once wholly unconscious of danger from this source, go down yearly into drunkards' graves. A person's inherited evil forces cannot be measured. He may inherit from his ancestors, whether near or distant, an unhealthy moral tendency or physical diathesis, to which the peculiarly disturbing influence of alcohol will give the morbid condition in which it will find its disastrous life. That such results follow the use of alcohol in a large number of cases is now a well-known fact in the history of inebriation. The subject of alcoholism, with the mental and moral causes leading thereto, has attracted a considerable deal of earnest attention. Physicians, superintendents of inebriate and lunatic asylums, prisonkeepers, legislators, and philanthropists have been observing and studying its many sad and terrible phases and recording results and opinions. Some people disagree about things like whether drunkenness is a disease for which the person is no longer responsible and should be treated and restrained, like with fever or mania; a crime that should be punished; or a sin that should be admitted and forgiven so that the Physician of Souls can heal the person. However, everyone agrees that many people have a mental and nervous condition that makes drinking very dangerous.
The point we want to convey to you is that a man cannot determine if he has a hereditary or acquired physical or mental condition until he has consumed alcoholic drinks for a specific period of time. If this condition does exist, it may be discovered too late.
Dr. D.G. Dodge, the former Superintendent of the New York State Inebriate Asylum, expressed his belief that intemperance is a transmissible disease, similar to "scrofula, gout, or consumption," when discussing the causes of intemperance.
"Some men exhibit an alcoholic idiosyncrasy, characterized by a latent desire for stimulants that, if indulged, quickly develops into habits of intemperance and eventually leads to a morbid appetite. This condition bears all the hallmarks of a diseased system, which the patient, without assistance, is unable to alleviate due to the disease's underlying weakness.
"Again, we find in another class of persons those who have had healthy parents and have been educated and accustomed to good social influences, moral and social, but whose temperament and physical constitution are such that, when they once indulge in the use of stimulants, which they identify pleasurable, they continue to habitually indulge till they cease to be moderate and become excessive drinkers. They establish a depraved appetite that gradually leads them towards destruction.
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