ALCOHOLISM

For as in the days before the flood; they were … drinking.

—Matt. 24:38

33 Alcoholism’s Cost to Society

Altogether, alcoholism now is said to be costing society around $25 billion annually. Of this, 10 billion dollars is lost by the nation’s employers, because of absenteeism and low productivity of alcoholic personnel whose absentee rate is 2-l/2 times as much as other workers.

Law officials estimate the cost for arrest, trial and jailing of drinkers at more than 100 million dollars yearly. Almost half the 5.5 million arrests annually in the US are related to alcoholic abuse.

34 U. S. Drinking Statistics

Americans are spending over $33 billion each year on alcoholic beverages. In 1960, wine sales in the US totaled 163.4 million gallons; in 1975, they have passed 360 million gallons.

There are now 65 million people in the US who drink, and an estimated 5 million are chronic, excessive drinkers. For every heroin addict in the US today, there are at least 15 hard-core alcoholics.

35 Heartbreaks In Alcoholism

Alcoholism is found to he breaking up marriages, impoverishing families, and displacing children from homes. It is blamed for 80,000 deaths a year, including half of all traffic fatalities and homicides, and a fourth of all suicides.

36 Prohibition’s Downs And Ups

Alcoholism is more prevalent today than a half century ago, and is involving an increasing number of women.

From the turn of the century until the enactment of Prohibition, there was a steady decline in the rate of hospitalization for alcoholic mental disease. Right after Prohibition came into effect, the decline was even more pronounced. But this was soon followed by a steady rise in the rate, until the peak was reached in 1941. During World War II, the rate fell again, only to start up once more after the close of the war.

37 Most Alcoholic Person

The most alcoholic person was in England. A person by the name of Vanhorn averaged over four bottles of ruby port daily for 23 years prior to his death at 61. He emptied 35,688 bottles in his lifetime.

38 Canadian Beer

There are 120 brands of Canadian beer, and in the early 1970s, the Canadian people drank no less than 2.6 billion pints of it—enough to keep Niagara’s Horse-Shoe Falls spilling at full flow for ten minutes!

39 Tight Money Buys Hard Liquor

Sidney Frank, president of Schenley Distillers, told a recent New Orleans distributors’ meeting that tight money is helping “soft goods and hard liquor sales.”

According to press reports, he said:

“The money market is getting tighter and people can’t get enough credit for homes and hard goods, so they’re using a lot of their money for soft goods and whisky.”

40 Damages Of Alcohol

Tests show that after taking 3 bottles of beer, there is an average net loss of memory of 13%. Trained typists were tested and their errors increased 40%, after taking only small quantities of alcohol. It is estimated that people who abuse alcohol shorten their lives by an average of 10–12 years.

41 More Alcoholic Damages

There is, by weight, precisely the same quantity of alcohol in one jigger of whiskey—or in one glass of wine—or in one bottle of beer.

One ounce of alcohol retards muscular reaction 17.4 percent: Increases time required to make a decision 9.7 percent; Increases errors due to lack of attention 35.3 percent, and due to lack of muscular co-ordination 59.7 percent.

—Paul Harvey, in Listen

42 Alcohol And Fighting Spirit

When the blood stream is 2/10 of 1 percent alcohol the drinker thinks he can fight anybody in the crowd; when it is 4/10 of 1 percent he is in a drunken stupor; and when it is 6/10 of 1 percent he is in danger of death.

43 French Alcoholics

Alcoholism kills almost 22,000 persons a year in France, the country which has more cases of cirrhosis of the liver than any other in the world. Official statistics also show that the average Frenchman drinks 31 gallons of wine a year.

44 Alcohol As A Narcotic

Hold a mouthful of spirits—whiskey for instance—in your mouth for five minutes, and you will find it burns severely; inspect the mouth, and you will find it inflamed. Hold it for ten or fifteen minutes, and you will find that various parts of the interior of the mouth have become blistered; then tie a handkerchief over the eyes, and taste, for instance, water, vinegar, milk, or senna, and you will find that you are incapable of distinguishing one from another. This experiment proves to a certainty that alcohol is not only a violent irritant, but also a narcotic.

—Dr. McCulloch

45 Even Social Drinking

Although it’s long been known that excessive drinking damages the brain, a new report contends that even “social drinking” destroys brain cells. At the 28th International Congress on Alcohol and Alcoholism, Dr. Melvin H. Knisely, professor of anatomy at the Medical College of South Carolina, offered evidence to show that when a drinker begins to feel the least bit giddy, a few of his brain cells are being killed. A heavy drinking bout can damage or destroy as many as 10,000 such cells.

—Lloyd Shearer

46 How To Self Destruct Brain Cells

Each normal human being is born with about 17 billion brain cells. We can destroy many of them and still have all we need. But brain cells are the only cells in the body that cannot reproduce themselves. Scientist have discovered that blood will sludge in the capillaries of the eye after only one large glass of beer. The more alcohol in the blood the more ruptured cells there are. This explains why there are eight times as many people who have cirrhosis of the liver among drinkers as among those who don’t drink. A heavy drinker can destroy a few thousand cells in one bout. And with each round, the cells grow fewer and fewer.

—Pastor’s Manual

47 Check List For Would-Be Alcoholics

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says that problem drinkers are those who may not yet be full-fledged alcoholics, but whose drinking, seriously and adversely, affects their lives, Symptoms:

•     Drinking regularly in order to function or to “cope” with life.

•     Drinking to get drunk frequently.

•     Going to work intoxicated.

•     Driving a car while drunk.

•     Requiring medical attention because of drinking.

•     Getting into trouble with the law while drinking.

•     Doing something while drunk which a person would never do sober.

48 Alcohol As Poison

Sir Frederick Treves was the famous British surgeon who operated with skill and success on King Edward VII. At the time of the king’s coronation, this famous doctor declared that alcohol is distinctly a poison, and that its use ought to be limited as strictly by law like any other poison.

He asserted that alcohol is not an appetizer, that even a small quantity hinders digestion, that its stimulating effects endure only for a moment, and that when the brief surge of supposed strength is gone, the capacity for work quickly falls below the normal level.

49 Making People Less Ashamed

The great Canadian physician Sir William Osler was lecturing one day on alcohol.

“Is it true,” asked a student, “that alcohol makes people able to do things better? “

“No,” replied Sir William. “It just makes them less ashamed of doing them badly.”

50 Is Liquor A Disease?

1. It is the only disease that is contracted by an act of the will;

2. It is the only disease that requires a license to propagate it;

3. It is the only disease that is bottled and sold;

4. It is the only disease that requires outlets to spread it;

5. It is the only disease that produces a revenue for the government;

6. It is the only disease that provokes crime;

7. It is the only disease that is habit-forming;

8. It is the only disease that is spread by advertising;

9. It is the only disease without a germ or virus cause, and for which there is no human corrective medicine; and

10. It is the only disease that bars the patient from heaven.

—The Gospel Banner

51 Indians’ Firewater

The first Europeans arriving in America introduced the Indians to liquor. The Indians gave the white men tobacco, which they had used sparingly before.

The Indians developed a fondness for “firewater” which persists to this day when there is a high incidence of liver ail ments among them. Whites developed tobacco into a great industry and now lung cancer, virtually unknown among Indians, takes thousands of lives among white smokers.

TRUE STORIES OF RUIN BY DRINK

52 The Trap Of Genius

Friedeman Bach, the most gifted son of the great German composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, went to pieces through drink. Michael Haydn, younger brother of Joseph Haydn, and hardly less gifted, was ruined by drink, Franz Schubert became an inveterate wine drinker and died in his early thirties. Robert Schumann’s dipsomania led to a nervous breakdown. After the death of his wife, Rembrandt, then thirty-six, became an alcoholic. Said Upton Sinclair, “I call drink the greatest trap that life has set for the feet of genius!”

—Sunday School Times

53 What An Exchange!

According to “It Happened in Canada,” during the early days of northern Ontario’s gold rush (1909), Sandy Mclntyre found what is now the famous mine bearing his name. He sold out for $25 in order to buy some liquor. Years later he still passed his time crying in beverage rooms, while the mine he discovered produced gold worth 230 million dollars.

54 Death Of Alexander

Alexander the Great was ruler of Macedonia at age 16, victorious general at 18, king at 20—and then died a drunkard before age 33. He had conquered the then-known world, but not himself. The story:

Alexander began a second night’s carousal with 20 guests at table in Babylon. He drank to the health of every person at the table. After this, he called for Hercules’ cup, which had a huge capacity. Filling it, he drank it all down, drinking to Proteas, a Macedonian in his company. Then he pledged to him again in the same extravagant cup, and instantly fell to the floor. He was fever stricken, and a few days later, he was dead.

55 France’s Greatest Enemy

In 1940, following the collapse of France and its occupation by Hitler’s legions, the Vichy government declared, “The chief cause of the moral collapse of the French Army was alcohol, and this is the worst of France’s four major problems.”

56 The Ship Called “Drunk”

There is a weird story of a streamer that was found full of liquor and rolling helplessly on the sea—with all its crew drunk. It came from Antwerp and brought a heavy cargo of smuggled liquor for the bootleggers of New York. When it was boarded by US revenue officers, they found 43,000 cases of liquor and a drunken crew of 32 men.

The ship’s wheel was deserted, two sailors snoring in the wheelhouse. Below decks, the crew was in a drunken stupor, many of them injured in the free fights that had occurred when the men were drunk. Three of them had broken jaws. Another was flushed with fever from a broken leg. Two had broken arms.

The captain had locked himself in his cabin, armed to the teeth. He said that his crew had drunk and fought every day since the vessel cleared from Antwerp. His papers showed that he had sailed with a hundred thousand cases of assorted liquors, more than half of which had disappeared. He was thankful to reach our shores with his life.

57 A Drama That Drowned

Ecarte, a play presented in London about 1875, holds the record for having the shortest run in the history of the theatre. At the end of the first act on the opening night, the producer, disgusted with himself and his company, informed the audience that the play would not continue, refunded the money and closed the house for the rest of the season. Having been in a generous mood before the curtain arose on this scene, in which considerable drinking took place, the producer had ordered real champagne served and, consequently, the players were “finished” before the act.

—Freling Foster

58 The Little Baby’s Shoes

So depraved and dehumanized by drink was Melvin Trotter that he sneaked into the room where his baby lay in a little white casket, and removed the little white shoes from its feet. He went to a saloon, plopped the little shoes down on the counter and said, “Give me a drink! I’m dying for a drink!”

However, not every spark of humanness had died in the sordid soul of the saloon keeper, because he said, “Here’s a drink, but you go and put those shoes back on the feet of your dead baby!” Sometime thereafter this slave of alcohol came to know Jesus Christ. Let Trotter tell what happened:

“There was not anything that I knew about that I had not gone through. I had taken cure after cure. I had taken everything known to science, and had made resolution after resolution. But just one glimpse of Jesus Christ, and I have never wanted a drink from that instant to this!”

—Walter B. Knight

59 Est! Est! Est!

Late in the 1790s, there was a wineloving German bishop who decided one day to make the Grand Tour of Italy. Before leaving, he sent his valet ahead to sample the wines along the way, and to write “Est” on the doors of taverns where the wines were found to be good. The valet pulled up at the monastery of Montefiascone, fifty miles from Rome, and sampled the wine there. It was so wonderful that he rushed to the city gates and chalked up “EST! EST! EST!”

When the bishop arrived, one sip was all he needed. He unpacked and promptly drank himself to death. Just before he died, he left half of his entire estate to the monastery on condition that once a year, a barrel of “Est, Est, Est” would be emptied over his grave. And until the outbreak of World War II, at least, this ceremony was religiously performed every Spring. An Italian wine has been named “Est Est Est of Montefiascone.”

60 Two Most Costly Drinks

On the last day of Lincoln’s life, the great emancipator said: “We have cleared up a colossal job. Slavery is abolished. After reconstruction the next great question will be the overthrow and suppression of the legalized liquor traffic.”

That evening, Mr. Booth stopped in a saloon, filled himself with liquor to nerve himself for his planned tragedy. That night Lincoln’s bodyguard left the theater for a drink of liquor at the same saloon. While he was away Booth shot Lincoln. Those two drinks were the most costly drinks in American history.

61 The Drunkard’s Child

My father is a drunkard,

My mother she is dead,

And I am just an orphan child—

No place to lay my head.

All through this world I wander,

They drive me from their door;

Someday I’ll find a welcome

On Heaven’s golden shore.

Now, if to me you’ll listen,

I’ll tell you a story sad

How drinking rum and the gambling “hell,”

Has stole away my dad.

My mother is in Heaven

Where God and the angels smile.

And now I know she’s watching

Her lonely orphan child.

We all were once so happy

And had a happy home,

Till dad he went to drinking rum,

And then he gambled some.

He left my darling mother,

She died of a broken heart;

And as I tell my story,

I see your teardrops start.

Don’t weep for me and mother,

Although I know it’s sad,

But try and get someone to cheer

And save poor lonely dad.

I’m awful cold and hungry—

He closed his eyes and sighed,

And those who heard his story

Knew the orphan child had died.

—Author Unknown

62 If You Drink

There is an advise from Western Voice magazine written two decades ago which is still practical:

If you are a married man who absolutely must drink whiskey, start a saloon in your own home. Be its only customer, and you won’t have to buy a license.

Give your wife $20 to buy a gallon of whiskey; there are 69 glasses to the quart; buy your drinks from your wife at the present price per drink, fifty cents.

When the first gallon is gone, your wife will have $120 to put in the bank and $20 to start in business again. If you live two years, continue to buy all your whiskey from your wife, and then die with snakes in your boots. Your widow will have enough to bury you decently, bring up your children, marry a decent man and forget all about you.

63 First One In Steel Cage

Mang Kario, a Filipino steel worker was contracted by the police department to construct a steel cage detention cell. For three days, Mang Kario worked on the project and was paid upon its completion. The police described the cell as “well done. “

Pleased with his masterpiece and a few pesos richer, Mang Kario invited his friends to a few rounds of drinks which started at 4 p. m. Thursday and ended in the wee hours of Friday. Mang Kario was staggering home when a police patrol chanced upon him. He was picked up and detained for curfew violations—the first to use his “masterpiece.”

DRINKING AND DRIVING DO NOT MIX

64 Wrong Observation

President C. H. Greenewalt of Du Pont tells of a leading Philadelphian of the early 1900s who said that the development of the motorcar was a boom to highway safety “as it would free the country from drunken riders and wild horses.”

The surprise: In North America, about 26,000 people are killed in drunk driving accidents every year. One major insurance company estimates that 1 out of every 50 cars bearing down on you in the highway is driven by a driver who has been drinking. An estimated 75% of all US drivers drink and most of them drive after drinking.

65 “I’ll Be On My Way”

“I’ll have one more beer to finish and then I’ll be on my way,” phoned Allen Marvin Bourgeois from a saloon to Mrs. Ruth Ronco. A little later, Bourgeois’ auto slammed into a concrete abutment while traveling 75 miles an hour! Killed in the car with Bourgeois were Everett Gillian, Jr., and Miss Joyce Ann Patenaude.

—Chicago Daily Tribune

66 Subway Train Crash

A subway train crashed in London, England, killing 41 persons. A forensic expert who examined the body of engineer Leslie Newson reported that the body contained the same alcohol level at which a motorist can be banned from driving. Newson had been drinking before his train smashed into the dead-end of a tunnel at Moorgate station early on the morning of February 28, 1975.

—Prairie Overcomer

67 Dad’s Good Liquor

A fatal accident, involving the lives of four young people, took place upon one of the nation’s highways. The evidence that liquor was the culprit was found in the broken whisky bottles among the debris and mangled bodies of the four youthful victims. The father of one of the girls in frenzied anguish over the untimely death of his beautiful daughter threatened to kill the one who had provided the four young people with liquor, but upon going to the cupboard where he kept his supply of choice beverages, he found a note in his daughter’s handwriting, “Dad, we’re taking along some of your good liquor—I know you won’t mind.”

—Christian Union Herald

68 Obituaries In Advance

Preceding Memorial Day one year, the following item appeared on page one of the Tulsa Tribune: “The Tribune requests that persons who intend to mix liquor with gasoline in Memorial Day celebrations kindly leave typed obituaries and photographs or one-column cuts with the city editor before beginning the day’s observance. This courtesy will be greatly appreciated.”

69 Radical Sentencing Of Drunk Drivers

Chicago authorities found at least one solution to the drunk-driver problem—punishment. Newspapers warned that over the Christmas holidays in 1970, drunk drivers would be sentenced to seven days in jail and be given a year’s suspension of their driver’s licenses. The result was a 66 percent reduction in traffic fatalities, as compared with the same period the previous year!

Judge Raymond K. Berg, supervising judge of traffic court, promptly called a meeting of officials to extend the crackdown for the entire year.

—Stanley C. Baldwin

70 Free Burial For Drinkers

The Dilday family funeral directors are offering a free funeral to drunken drivers. The conditions, according to spokesman are:

•     Applicants must sign up ahead of time, local residents only.

•     They must promise to drink heavily and drive during the New Year’s weekend, ending Jan. 2.

•     They will get a certificate, promising that if they kill themselves because of their drinking and driving habits, Dilday will bury them free.

•     They must attach the certificate to the sunvisor on the driver’s side of their cars, where the driver can see it overhead constantly.

71 Realistic Advertisement In Waco

The manufacturers of a well-known brand of beer never knew whether their parade in Waco, Texas, helped their cause or hurt it.

The parade was the beginning of a five-day appearance of the famed hitch of eight immense Clydesdale horses, and was planned with all possible advance publicity. The horses led the parade, pulling a giant wagon of dummy beer cases.

But the parade had a surprise ending. A trailer truck, bearing a demolished automobile, with ketchup-splattered young people hanging from its windows, followed close behind. Placards proclaimed that beer and automobiles equal death. For three hours, as the parade advanced its way through Waco’s business district, the deadly reminder of highway death trailed the beer advertising. As thousands of people paused to admire the horses, they gasped in horror at the view of havoc caused by drunken driving. Four university students in the car played their roles so well that many believed the car actually contained corpses. City police granted the same rights to the dry campaigners as to the Anheuser-Busch display.

Following the float was a string of cars carrying signs telling of the devastating effects of alcohol. A number of policemen along the way voiced their approval of the float—they had seen with their own eyes many similar wrecks—and greeted the dry campaigners with handshakes. The demonstration for abstinence was planned by the Rev. Tilson F. Maynard, president of the McLennan County Drys, and a Baptist minister.

—Good News Broadcaster

72 Government Action At Last

The U. S. Department of Transportation has established an Office of Alcohol Counter-measures, said to be the first official government action against alcohol since Prohibition. Heading it: university professor Robert F. Borkenstein, creator of the Breathanalyzer.

73 Epigram On Alcoholism

•     “Drunkenness has killed more men than all of history’s wars.”

—General Pershing

•     “Drink is a cancer in human society, eating out its vitals and threatening its destruction.”

—Abraham Lincoln

•     “He who drinks is deliberately disqualifying himself for advancement.”

—President Taft

•     “I would rather own stock in hell than in a brewery. Hell received the poor fellow after he’s debauched. The brewery takes aim in his innocency, debauches him and prepares him for hell.”

—James R. Stuart

•     “It is my judgment that because of the devastating problem that alcoholism has become in America, it is better for Christians to be teetotalers, except for medicinal purposes.”

—Billy Graham

See also: Cigarettes ; Eating and Drinking ; Isa. 5:22; Luke 17:27; 21–34; Rom. 13:13; I Cor. 6:10.