A Doctor Says, "Don't Kid Yourself About Cures

THE literature on the subject of drinking alcohol has been changing noticeably in the last two decades. Early medical records confined themselves to the rather obvious fact that the problem of drunkenness was little understood and, for the most part, stressed the hopeless plight of a person addicted to habitual or periodic overindulgence. So-called cures were certainly the exception, and mostly were credited to techniques other than medical--usually religious or moral, whereby the individual was able to achieve some form of permanent abstinence. Temperance workers and prohibitionists were the butt of music-hall type humor, and the greatest prohibitive experiment of all, the Volstead Act, is still regarded to this day as having done far more harm than good.