HEALTH HINTS FOR HOBOES.
Alcoholism.
By Robert W. Irwin.
The greatest cause of misery, filth, immorality, insanity and disease is the excessive us of alcohol. It makes a man careless of personal cleanliness, neglectful of his family, quarrelsome and lazy, and eventually he will become a nuisance to the community. After a certain period of indulgence, his heart, liver and kidneys become diseased; gastritis sets in. He cannot eat. In many cases his stomach becomes ulcerated and he is condemned to a life of misery. He loses all ambition, becomes fretful and quarrelsome, and finally after several attacks of delirium tremens, otherwise known as snakes, Willies, jim-jams, etc., his unfortunate brain gives out. He degenerates into a worthless derelict with but one object in life -an insane desire for drink. He will beg, borrow or steal to get it. He will sell the clothes off his back or the shoes off his feet. He is willing to starve, to go about filthy and in rags–an object of public coutempt and a nuisance to the community.
Finally he will make his miserable exit from the world, either by dropsy, Bright’s disease or some such other pleasant (?) ailment. It is a well known fact that a system saturated with alcohol is less able to resist infectious and con. tagious diseases than one that is normal. A body weakened by starvation, exposure and neglect falls an easy prey to pneumonia, tuberculosis and rheumatism. And a man with sensibility blunted by booze will generally have very little regard for the moral law, and by such disregard will become a walking mass of corruption, spreading contagion among innocent victims as he drags his miserable, polluted way through this world.
No drunkard is made in a day. He begins with a social glass of beer and ends up as a human wreck.
With your first drink, you may be laying the foundation of a future life of misery. By each succeeding drink you are placing another nail in your coffin.
The alcohol habit is like the drug habit; easy to acquire and hard to get rid of Unless a drunkard is practically dead-if he has a desire to rid himself of this habit-and once again become a man and a useful citizen, a cure is possible. The habitual drunkard who persists in his ways is the man who is satisfied with his condition and does not wish to be freed of this vile, degrading and destructive. The only safe thing for one who has not started is not to start. To the old and seasoned victim-get rid of it before it gets you. For one desiring to get rid of the liquor habit, I would recommend the following:
- First of all get away from your old associates and the localities you have been hanging out in.
- Get all the fresh air you can and the nourishing food you are able to obtain.
- Cut out booze and beer entirely. Go to some physician or dispensary and get a good tonic for your system.
- If suffering from any organic or blood disease, apply to some hospital for treatment.
- If your will power is so broken that you cannot do this, have yourself committed to the alcoholic ward of some hospital or State asylum, until you have recovered.
You can be cured. No case is hopeless where the patient really desires a cure. The process is slow. What has been torn down must be rebuilt, but where the mind is deter. mined, success is always possible.
Where there is a WILL, there is a WAY. Exercise the mind that nature gave you when you were created.