(2) A much commoner plea for drinking rests upon its sociability.  But this is a matter of convention which can readily enough be altered.  There is nothing inherently more sociable in the drinking of wine than in the drinking of grape-juice, or coffee, or chocolate, or tea.  Indeed, one may well ask why the chief social bond between men should consist in drinking liquids side by side!  Games and sports, in which wit is pitted against wit, or which bring men together in happy cooperation, together with the great resource of conversation, are more socially binding than any drinks.  There will, indeed, be a temporary social hardship for many abstainers until the custom is generally broken up; one runs the risk of being thought by the heedless a prig and a Puritan.  But that is a small price to pay for one’s health and one’s influence on others.

(3) More important than any of these causes is the craving for a stimulant.  The monotony of work, the fatigue toward the end of the day, the severity of our Northern climate, the longing for intenser living, lead men to seek to apply the whip to their flagging energies.  This stimulus to the body is, however, largely if not wholly, illusory.  The mental-emotional effects, noted in the following paragraph, give the drinker the impression that he is physically fortified; but objective tests show that, after a very brief period, the dominant effect upon the organism is depressant.  The apparent increase in bodily warmth, so often experienced, is a subjective illusion; in reality alcohol lowers the temperature and diminishes resistance to cold.  Arctic explorers have to discard it entirely.  The old idea of helping to cure snake bite, hydrophobia, etc, by whiskey was sheer mistake; the patient has actually much less of a chance if so drugged.  Only for an immediate and transitory need, such as faintness or shock, is the quickly passing stimulating power of alcohol useful; and even for such purposes other stimulants are more valuable.  Reputable physicians have almost wholly ceased to use it. [Footnote:  See H. S. Williams, op. cit, p. 4, 124-127; H. S. Warner, op. cit, pp. 87]

(4) The one real value of alcohol to man has been the boon of stimulating his emotional and impulsive life, bringing him an elevation of spirits, drowning his sorrows, helping him to forget, helping to free his mind from the burden of care, anxiety, and regret.  As William James, with his unerring discernment, wrote twenty-five years ago:  “The reason for craving alcohol is that it is an unaesthetic, even in moderate quantities.  It obliterates a part of the field of consciousness and abolishes collateral trains of thought.” [Footnote:  Tolstoy also hit the nail on the head in his little essay, Why do Men Stupefy Themselves?] This use, in relieving brain-tension, in bringing a transient cheer and comfort to poor, overworked, worried, remorseful men, is not to be despised.  Dull lives are vivified by it, a fleeting anesthesia of unhappy memories and longings is effected, and for the moment life seems worth living.