Pictures and Problems from London Police Courts by Thomas Holmes

Author:Thomas Holmes [Holmes, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Historical, General
ISBN: 9783752353662
Google: korzDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Outlook Verlag
Published: 2020-07-27T01:02:55+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

AMONG DIPSOMANIACS

It is commonly believed, and accepted as an article of faith among temperance workers, that there is much less hope of reforming a drunken woman than of reforming a drunken man. My experience of both men and women leads me to the opinion that the chances are about equal. In both men and women physiological and pathological causes very often lie at the roots of their condition, and make it difficult—almost impossible—to deal successfully with the drink habit. Some of the best fellows I know are constantly getting into trouble, and creating terror and misery at home, not because they have any love for drink, or any uncontrollable impulse to take it, but because there is something wrong in their mental or physical organization.

I have studied these men, watched them, made friends of them, and the more hopeless I have seen my task to be, the more has my sympathy and desire to help them been enlarged. Ill-health, lowness of spirits, vacancy of mind, and often delusions, coupled with loss of memory in many variations, come upon them, and at such times they are apt to take drink, with terrible results. These men are not what they are because they drink, but the reverse: they drink because they are what they are. In a word, drunkenness is not the cause, but the result, of their condition. Doctors will not, of course, certify them to be insane; until, therefore, the State makes some provision for the half-mad, their case is hopeless, and frequent tragedies will continue; for matters are often ended by murder or suicide, and sometimes the latter course would undoubtedly give relief, and even comfort, to the suffering and distracted friends. But the dipsomaniac pure and simple, the man who at intervals of a few weeks or a few months has a passionate and overwhelming, uncontrollable desire for drink, is a strange being and a pitiful object. Cases of this kind almost fascinate me, for they are such tremendous contradictions.

Time after time in my own house I have sat in front of such men. I have seen their earnest—undoubtedly earnest—desire to be delivered from their enemy; I have listened to the poor pleas for help in their struggles; I have seen them and felt them clinging to me as if for life and hope. But I have perceived at the same time their fearful cunning and devilish resolve to frustrate any effort made for them, and to get drink at any cost. I have seen their trembling, eager joy when they have obtained drink; I have seen their shame, penitence, tears, and remorse even after they have swallowed the drink. ‘I am in hell! I am in hell! Give me a hand out! You tried to save Cakebread—save me!’ So from the depths of a ‘shelter’ wrote such a man to me. I wrote to him, telling him to come and be saved. He came, white and tremulous from his last debauch. I found him a clever man and a gentleman and most powerful in physique.

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