ALCOHOLOGY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 350, 30 March 1910, Page 3

ALCOHOLOGY.

"so JOLLY! I I (Published by Special Arrangement.) it ib' often argued that the pleasure obtained by taking alcohol outweighs its evil effects. This may 'be considered from two points of view. First, it must always be remembered that any tempor-1 ary oblivion from trouble and anxiety! obtained by taking alcohol is counter- j balanced by subsequent reaction in the form of mental depression and physical' wretchedness, which renders the sufferer! more unfit to cope with the difficulties of life. Secondly, the depressant ef-1 fects of alcohol upon the highect centres of the brain, and its iniluence in causing intellectual lethargy and s'ense j of fatigue, co-operate with the former, causes to lessen the normal capacity i for genuine enjoyment and pleasure. ( For the sake of the national phy-, sique it is most unfortunate that passive enjoyment of sitting in a stuffy pub. dimly conscious tlmt there is a feeling of weight in the legs when moved, is thought by so many to be comparable with the active enjoyment j of those who have full control over i their limbs, and can speiid a holiday j rowing and cycling, and obtain the I maximum erf ffijsyiiie'lit befcaiiSd they. have the iis'6 of their powers. Wlnle J it is customary to recognise and lay j stress upon the pleiWufaMe states induced by alcohol, it is fiqtiflliy custom- 1 ary to refrain from exposing the unhappines's and misery often introduced ■ into home life by the nervous irrita- j bility 'whicli is so often manifest m those who take so-called moderate quan tities. In those persons the small events and annoyances of daily life bring on an amount of nervous upset and irritation out of all proportion to the original cause. The onlooker recognises this disproportion, but not so the ; patients themselves, wlio consider their irritability and indignation absolutely justifiable. so entirely, for the time being, is their sense of the relative importance of things blurred and altered by the morbid condition of their brain. It is, moreover, one of the properties of alcohol to blot out events' from the memoify. In these people, consequently, the recollection of their own tiresomeness .passes far more rapidly away from their minds than it does from the minds of their friends, who cannot ihelp regarding tliem coldly even when their normal and affable manners) .have returned.

The real price paid by many a man and woman for the alcohol they take is undoubtedly the price of partial estrangement from their nearest relatives. Add to this the needless anxiety and worry endured by these same relatives. and then let us decide whether any initial pleasure to be gamed by taking alcohol is' worth all this risk and loss. Is the applause of a gathering (consisting often of persons incapable of keenly appreciating genuine intellectual achievement) worth buying at the price of the alienation of the home 'circle, which is called upon to suffer when the subsequent reaction inevitably takes' place?