SHALL I BECOME AN ALCOHOLIC?

White Ribbon, Volume 19, Issue 6, 1 July 1947, Page 9

SHALL I BECOME AN ALCOHOLIC?

Most of my friends drink and it is the accepted practice in my social set. Sometimes, we drink a good deal over weekends and holidays. Not enough to get drunk, you understand ; ju>t to be sociable. But the other day, 1 saw a statement that upset my complacency. I read that there are, in the United States, over 600,0U0 alcoholics. All at once, I realized that probably most of them were once social drinkers even as I. What art* my chances of slipping from my present status of “social” drinker to “chronic” drinker or alcoholic ? I read that one of the tests for alcoholism is the need for a drink the morning after a big party. Another is the practice of drinking alone. A third is the inability to get by certain hours—such as eleven or five o’clock—without a “bracer” or by certain places such as a favourite cocktail lounge or the “eighteenth hole" without indulging. All these seem indications of a growing habituation to drink. Then all at once I thought: “Whv not stop before any of these signs Tiegin to show?" And now I know I shan’t be an alcoholic because I’ve quit drinking alcoholic beverages for keeps! _ _