About Alcoholism - Alcoholism Information, Research and Treatment

His [Samuel Johnson's] resolution to drink "less strong liqueurs" was new. He had apparently abstained throughout his marriage, but began again sometime after 1757. Hill conjectures that it was in 1759 that "University College witnessed his drinking three bottles of port without being the worse for it." In 1762, on the other hand, he was intoxicated after three bottles. By 1767 he had had at least three more periods of abstinence, and thereafter he seems to have drunk little and rarely. The reason is reported by Hannah More in her Memoirs: "I can't drink a little, child, therefore I never touch it."