Personally, I have never been an excessive alcoholic. It is an interesting fact that many men endeavoring to deal with people of this class use as a bait the statement that they themselves have been victims. Their usual claim is that they first cured themselves, and then took up the work of curing others. I remember a meeting of social-service workers in Boston that I was invited to address. I made a statement to this effect in the course of my talk and greatly offended a previous speaker who had emitted the usual professional patter concerning his original self-cure. I was quite willing to compare with him the results of our methods of treatment, but had no opportunity so to do.
HEREDITARY TENDENCIES TOWARD ADDICTION AN IMPOSSIBILITY
It is absolutely essential that the man who wishes to help another who has lost control must first accurately understand not only his mental imperfection, if there is any, but his general psychological state. The line between sobriety and drunkenness in the man who has once lost control is almost indistinguishable; it is impossible when talking with him to be sure whether you are talking with the normal mind or with the alcoholic mind. Having once made certain that it is the normal mind to which you are presenting your arguments, your next necessary step is to strip away every mental reservation. Thousands of men who have honestly desired to leave off alcohol have been prevented from doing so by their own secretiveness; it is this mental reservation which has been responsible for many of the failures of my treatment.
While the absolute inheritance of a craving for alcohol is, in my experience, a rare thing--so rare as to seem almost negligible, there is no doubt, on the other hand, that many men and women inherit imperfect nervous systems. An imperfect nervous system, if it knew the reason for its own imperfections, might naturally crave alcohol; but inasmuch as such an imperfect system is not naturally accompanied by this instinctive knowledge, the theory of hereditary alcoholic craving must be set aside as untenable. I absolutely deny, therefore, the possibility of such hereditary tendencies. I know that by so doing I may cause acute mental discomfort to those who have made of heredity an excuse for their errors not only to their friends, but in their own minds. The old cloak of heredity has been worn to tatters and must be discarded. Who among us cannot follow up the branches of his family-tree and find somewhere upon one side or the other a person of alcoholic tendencies? In ninety families out of a hundred any one who looks can find such an excuse for his own weakness. In thousands of instances physicians have taken seriously such excuses offered by their patients, but the doctor who listens to his patient's babble of heredity is sure to be misled, and the patient who believes this too commonly accepted theory robs himself of his strongest weapon against alcohol--his own conviction of his personal responsibility and power for self-help.