Alcoholics Start Young

Drunkenness is voluntary insanity--Seneca.

This kick in the teeth to Omar Khayyam, by a first-century Roman philosopher, heads an interesting discussion* of alcoholism, by eminent medicos, released last week.

Just to show that there are no prohibition axes up the sleeve of the argument, the doctors also use as a text St. John Chrysostom's shattering analysis of prohibition:

"I hear many cry when deplorable excesses happen, 'Would there were no wine!' Oh, folly! Oh, madness! It is the wine that causes this abuse? No. . . . If you say, 'Would there were no wine' because of the drunkards, then you must say, going on by degrees, 'Would there were no steel,' because of the murderers, 'Would there were no night,' because of the thieves, 'Would there were no light,' because of the informers and 'Would there were no women,' because of adultery."

What is an alcoholic? "The individual who uses alcohol to excess harmful to him in any way," say the doctors. How does an alcoholic get that way? In childhood.

Alcoholics Are Sick. "Fundamentally," writes Baltimore's Dr. Horace K. Richardson, "the alcoholic is sick in his ego." If the ego is weakened in childhood, a neurotic, a hypochondriac, an alcoholic or a drug addict may result. Because of ego weakness, the average alcoholic lacks feelings of independence and power. "In alcohol he has discovered an easy, temporary and always obtainable method of pulling down the shade between himself and the threatening world of cold, hard, painful facts about him."

Alcoholics Are Made. Though many other factors are often involved, Dr. Richardson blames much alcoholism on parents who weaken their children's egos by withholding needed attention, affection and approval--or by overdoing it. How parents fail:

P:"Parental attention is all too frequently negative, inconsistent, hostile, aggressive and destructive. ... If the child is rejected or neglected or is made to feel that he is not wanted, he is bound to develop ideas of abasement . . . unworthiness, humility, ignobility and frequently, in addition, conflicts based upon anxiety and hostility. . . ." Sometimes, though a child is greatly beloved, that love is not shown "by consistent acts of kindness" and the child thinks itself unloved. P:"Too much love of a certain type" is just as bad, "protecting him from life, filling his suggestible mind with nebulous fears." This results in "ego impotency." P:The child must be punished, but he should not be allowed to interpret punishment as a withdrawal of love. "Do not forget that the severest punishment a child can receive may be only a facial expression."

P:Parents often punish children severely for expressing perfectly normal instincts, especially sex. "The child would not be normal were they absent [but] frequently we see in the childhood of the alcoholic the basis for ego weakness in the false and erroneous attitudes fostered by the parent toward even the presence of these feelings." The child must learn that these instincts are not cause for shame or guilt. P:"If the child has these pontifical parental attitudes held over him with a rigid denial of freedom to question ... or if too early or too consistently he has been dominated by uncompromising, unreasonable customs and conventions, he is almost certain to develop a rigid, uncompromising tyrant of a conscience. This fills the ego with feelings of shame . . . and contributes to ... weakness. ..."

Strong egos should be built in childhood, but failing that, "practically any person can learn how to develop ego strength at any period in life. . . . * It is frequently a long and painful process, but it can be done. To assist the individual in attaining this goal is the work of the psychiatrist, and in the above concept lies the germ of the prevention and also the treatment of alcoholism."

* In Alcohol Hygiene, which is published bi-monthly by the National Committee on Alcohol Hygiene, Inc., a group of doctors and psychiatrists. *That some alcoholics cannot be cured is freely conceded by Alcohol Hygiene's expert contributors. Baltimore's Dr. Robert V. Seliger, the committee's executive director, points out that some alcoholics are psychotic and must live out their days in a mental hospital.

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