THE ALCOHOLIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 779, 25 June 1954, Page 7

THE ALCOHOLIC

HE LOST WEEKEND is the sort of film that is not quickly forgotten, and though it’s now about eight years since it was first shown in New Zealand those who saw it won’t need to be told that the scene from it on the left shows Ray Milland as an alcoholic fighting a losing battle with whisky in a hotel bar, They won’t need to be reminded, either, that an alcoholic is not simply a man who likes the taste of liquor more, or is a bit weaker, than other men, According to, Alcoholism, a Voice of America programme to be heard from 2YA at 7.30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 29, there are about 4,000,000 alcoholics in the United States, and this programme takes a look at one of them-a fairly typical case. His story is told in dramatic incidents, linked with a*narration by Charles Laughton, Some alcoholics were sick before they started to drink, and they may have been alcoholics from the first drink. Others only develop the need for liquor with time, and for them addiction is progressive. But for all types the circle is vicious-a problem starts them drinking, their drinking makes the problem greater and only drink makes tolerable their inability to solve it. The programme discusses the work of Alcoholics Anonymous, and ends with a message from Dr. W. W. Bower, Director of the Bureau of Health Education of the American Medical Association, Alcoholism is the first of three VOA programmes about medicine to be broadcast from 2YA on Tuesday nights. The second, ‘The Span of Lite, discusses the way in which medical science has prolonged human life; and the third, The Progress of Medicine, describes some of the advances on the crude practices of about 100 years ago.