Alcoholism Quotes (6 quotes)
A Man may Smoak, or Drink, or take Snuff, ’till he is unable to pass away his Time without
it.
Alcoholism, the opium habit and tobaccoism are a trio of poison habits which have been weighty handicaps to human progress during the last three centuries. In the United States, the subtle spell of opium has been broken by restrictive legislation; the grip of the rum demon has been loosened by the Prohibition Amendment to the Constitution, but the tobacco habit still maintains its strangle-hold and more than one hundred million victims of tobaccoism daily burn incense to the smoke god.
Drunkenness, the ruin of reason, the destruction of strength, premature old age, momentary death.
Not only such Actions as were at first Indifferent to us, but even such as were Painful, will by Custom and Practice become Pleasant. Sir Francis Bacon observes in his Natural Philosophy, that our Taste is never pleased better, than with those things which at first created a Disgust in it. He gives particular Instances of Claret, Coffee, and other Liquors, which the Palate seldom approves upon the first Taste; but when it has once got a Relish of them, generally retains it for Life.
The name chronic alcoholism applies to the collective symptoms of a disordered condition of the mental, motor, and sensory functions of the nervous system, these symptoms assuming a chronic form, and without their being immediately connected with any of those (organic) modifications of the central or peripheric portions of the nervous system which may be detected during life, or discovered after death by ocular inspection; such symptoms, moreover, affecting individuals who have persisted for a considerable length of time in the abuse of alcoholic liquors.
These symptoms are formed in such a particular way that they form a disease group in themselves and thus merit being designated and described as a definite disease ... It is this group of symptoms which I wish to designate by the name Alcoholismus chronicus.