Drinking bout

“ There are relatively normal types of the heavy drinker,—the socially minded and the hard manual worker. But there is a large group of those who find in alcohol a relief from the burden of their moods, who find in its real effect, the release from inhibitions, a reason for drinking beyond the reach of reason. Do you feel that the endless monotony of your existence can no longer be borne,—drink deep and you color your life to suit yourself. ”

“ But let me tell you, there are companies of men of genius into which I sometimes go, where the atmosphere of intellect and sentiment is so much more stimulating than alcohol, that, if I thought fit to take wine, it would be to keep me sober.
Among the gentlemen that I have known, few, if any, were ruined by drinking. My few drunken acquaintances were generally ruined before they became drunkards. The habit of drinking is often a vice, no doubt,—sometimes a misfortune,—as when an almost irresistible hereditary propensity exists to indulge in it,—but oftenest of all a punishment. ”

“ Beginning with physical intolerance for alcohol, for years drinking only for the sake of comradeship and because alcohol was everywhere on the adventure-path, I had now reached the stage where my brain cried out, not merely for a drink, but for a drunk. ”

“ Everybody drinks it; and you shall, too—you shall!" he cried, with a fearful oath, "and then see if you don't run off to the gin-shop, to take the taste of it out of your mouth. Drink? and who can help drinking, with his stomach turned with such hell-broth as that—or such a hell's blast as this air is here, ready to vomit from morning till night with the smells? I'll show you. You shall drink a bucket full of it, as sure as you live, you shall." ”

“ He who drinks small beer, goes to bed sober, Falls as the leaves do fall, that fall in October; He who drinks strong ale, goes to bed mellow, Lives as he ought to live, and dies a jolly fellow. Such was the love of strong ale in the sixteenth century that a term was actually invented to describe madness produced by excessive ale-drinking. ”

“ Among the townspeople as in the country parts drunkenness from alcohol is almost unknown. Instinctively this race has a fear and horror of it; it feels itself intoxicated from its birth—drunk without drinking. ”

“ The poor drunkard often, in the midst of his dissipation, resolves to put away his cup; but when again he comes in the presence of the bottles and decanters, his mouth begins to feel thus and so, and he can not help drinking. ”

“ Many fine promising young fellows, who have at first shown no signs of caring for liquor, have ultimately become addicted to drinking, from that most dangerous habit of taking a nip whenever they have an opportunity. ”

“ The students, after their Kneips, have what they call Katzenjammer,—cat-sickness,—the effect of debauch, loss of rest, and general irregularities; and those who do most of the beer-drinking do least of the studying. I should, indeed, fear fatal effects from drinking half the quantity of water which some of them take of beer. The drunkenness produced by beer is at least a very different thing from that produced by distilled spirits. ”

“ I can remember, when quite young, occasionally drinking—as I saw every body else do, boys as well as men, and even women—and I recollect also being two or three times overcome with liquor, to my infinite horror and shame not less than bodily suffering. ”

“ For the gurgling occasioned by the drink rushing with violence, and by its being drawn in with a great deal of breath, as if it were being poured into an earthenware vessel, while the throat makes a noise through the rapidity of ingurgitation, is a shameful and unseemly spectacle of intemperance. In addition to this, eagerness in drinking is a practice injurious to the partaker. ”

“ That has become the general motto. It sounds very filthy to hear of the astounding quantities of liquor consumed. But, in the first place, where much is drunk, it is only very light stuff. And, to make it less trying, [Pg 262] the drinkers adopt the Socratic maxim of "small cups and many," by frothing the beer up incredibly. Altogether they follow good classical rules, which it is curious to trace, and which make their symposia rather interesting. Drinking is not the end, but only the natural means for attaining hilarity. And there is a good deal of rough geniality about it. ”

“ The periodic drinker takes his dive into the sensual mud-bath just at the times when eager exertion has brought on lassitude of body and mind. He begins by timidly drinking a little of the deleterious stuff, and he finds that his mental images grow bright and pleasant. ”

“ Ridley, to whom the cup of wine offered in hospitality will be a cup of cursing. Good resolutions will be snapped like thread in a candle-flame, and men who came sober will go away, as from any other drinking-saloon, drunk, as he went out last night. ”

“ There has been more flub-dub printed and spoken about drinking liquor than about any other employment, avocation, vocation, habit, practice or pleasure of mankind. Drinking liquor is a personal proposition, and nothing else. ”

“ It has a very bad look to take such strong draughts while drinking that one has to blow or breathe heavily; while drinking to let the eyes wander around upon others; to commence drinking at table before parents or more important persons have drunk; to raise the glass to the mouth at the same time with one of more importance; to drink while others are speaking to us ”

“ The more the drinker takes, the more he often wants, and thus he goes on from drinking cider, wine, or beer, to drinking whiskey, brandy, or rum. Thus drunkards are made.
People who are in the habit of taking drinks which contain alcohol, often care more for them than for any thing else, even when they know they are being ruined by them. ”

“ But you will be more astonished when I shall assure you that they drink their crowned cups roundly, strain healths through their smocks, dance after the fiddle, &c. Drinking is the afternoon’s diversion; whether for want of a better, to employ the time, or affection to the drink, I know not. But I have found some persons of quality whom one could not safely visit after dinner, without resolving to undergo this drink-ordeal. It is esteemed a piece of wit to make a man drunk, for which some swilling insipid client or congiary is a frequent and [Pg 210] constant adjutant. ”

“ Drink far more lustily than those less happy.
Those also who were called the seven wise men used to make drinking parties; "for wine comforts the natural moroseness of old age," as Theophrastus says, in his treatise on Drunkenness. ”

“ Then the first beginneth againe and taketh seven, and in this manner they drinke thrice a peece round, every man taking a glasse more than his fellow, so that he that dranke least, which was the first, drank one and twenty pints, and the sixth man thirty-six. [123]
Scarcely less absurd than these laws of drunkenness, are the laws of health-drinking as described by Barnaby Rich in his work published 1619, the title of which is an excellent preface to the subject-matter, ‘The Irish Hubbub, or the English Hue and Crie ”

“ O, Jack, that temperate drinking is a famous net of old Satan’s to catch fools in. Your temperate drinker treads on slippery ground; for as I verily believe that alcohol is one of the most active imps for the destruction of both body and soul, the temperate drinker is too often gradually led on by the fiend, until the habit becomes fixed and inveterate; and he drags a galling chain, each day riveted more strongly, and the poor wretch hourly becomes more callous to shame, until he sinks into the grave—the drunkard’s grave. ”

“ The cool air sobered me, and my friend congratulated me on my recovery from a state of inebriety.
"After a little practice at the bar," said he—"it will take a good many tods to floor you. Let me give you a few hints as regards drinking. Never mix your liquor—always stick to one kind. After every glass, eat a cracker—or, what is better, a pickle. Plain drinks are always the best—far preferable to fancy drinks, which contain sugar, and lemons, and mint, and other trash; although a mixed drink may be taken on a stormy night, such as this has been. ”

“ Liquor seems to destroy a man's caution and make him reveal his real character. Now these fellows showed plainly their feelings towards us last night when they were drinking. To-day they are sober and more cautious, but I believe they feel just the same towards us. ”

“ "There's nothing like it for clearing the head. You must expect to be thick-witted if you insist upon drinking beer." ”

“ The most serious derangement is that of the nervous system, and the development in the young, under the influence of alcohol, of what is known as nervousness, to which is added the moral paralysis with which the habit of alcoholic drinking smites its victims in the very spring-time of life.”—Prof. ”

“ You say whiskey, but it may have been wine, or beer, or hard cider that he drank. Anything that contains alcohol will make a man drunk, for it is the alcohol which does all the mischief.
3. The Whiskey Flush.—You can almost always tell when a man has been drinking, even when he has not taken enough to make him drunk. You know by his flushed face and red eyes. When a man's face blushes from the use of alcohol, his whole body blushes at the same time. His muscles, his lungs, and his liver blush; his brain and spinal cord blush also. ”

“ The drunkard, as suggested, deprived of his liquor, represents furiously to himself in imagination the act of drinking: he dreams a gullet a yard long and an endless swallow—and in doing so he actually moulds and modifies his swallowing apparatus. ”

“ To drink hard is none of your habits, but even drinking what is called a certain quantity every day hurts the stomach, and by hereditary descent yours is delicate. I believe the poor Duke of Buccleuch laid the foundation of that disease which occasioned his premature death in the excesses of Villar's regiment, and I am sorry and ashamed to say, for your warning, that the habit of drinking wine, so much practised when I was a young man, occasioned, I am convinced, many of my cruel stomach complaints. ”

“ Why don't you give up drinking?"
"Because I don't choose. It doesn't matter what a man does if he's ready to take the consequences. Well, I'm ready to take the consequences. You talk glibly of giving up drinking, but it's the only thing I've got left now. What do you think life would be to me without it? Can you understand the happiness I get out of my absinthe? I yearn for it; and when I drink it I savour every drop, and afterwards I feel my soul swimming in ineffable happiness. It disgusts you. You are a puritan and in your heart you despise sensual pleasures. ”

“ What is the difference between the alcohol present in beer and cider, and that in gin and whiskey? Name another dangerous effect of alcoholic drinks. What business consideration should deter young men from liquor drinking?
141-143. Illustrate the general effect of alcohol upon the circulation. Upon the heart. Is alcohol a stimulant or a narcotic? Describe how alcohol becomes the "Genius of Degeneration." ”

“ Intemperate habits (where the man drinks a pure, though coarse and fiery, liquor, like New England rum) tend to check the consumptive tendency, though the drunkard, who himself escapes the consequences, may transmit the fatal seed to his children. ”

“ Temperance advocates can talk until 'dooms-day,' but the drinking habit will never be obliterated so long as we partake of flesh diet. A heavy drinker is invariably a heavy meat eater. The unfortunate drunkard never dreams that the feverish, poisonous germs gnawing at his vitals, first found their lodgement out of the flesh that had been killed. ”

“ First, it can hardly be questioned that alcohol has an injurious effect upon the nervous system. Second, it is a false notion that drinking vinous and spirituous liquors with meals helps a laborer in his work. Third, it is a mistake to think that moderate drinking is an aid to an artisan or that it increases his efficiency. ”

“ Thirst, for who in the time of innocence would have drunk without being athirst? Nay, sir, it was drinking; for privatio praesupponit habitum. ”

“ Speaking of drinking, I wonder if you really know what it means when a man pledges or drinks a health. It’s a very ancient custom! Back in the days of Saxon England, it very often happened that a man would be stabbed while drinking, so it became the habit for him to turn to his neighbor and ask if he would ‘pledge’ him. If he agreed, his duty was to keep guard over his friend who wished to drink. A trace of this caution still exists at Queen’s College, Oxford. ”

“ Drinking habits were very prevalent among men, and were not in any way disgraceful, unless excessive. ”

“ Fill with mingled cream and amber
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain -
Quaintest thoughts - queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today. ”

“ for tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally of coarse nerves, of are become so from wine drinking, and are not susceptible of influence from so refined a stimulant, will always be the favourite beverage of the intellectual: and, for my part, I would have joined Dr. ”

“ Wine when drunken makes the face flush, the eyes sparkle, the heart leap, the pulses sharp, the veins full; water when drunken does none of these acts, and seems to do nothing but respond to the natural wish for drink. ”

“ Because weak-drunk lead to strong-drunk, strong-drunk to powerful-drunk—and yet you say it! What for you teach Japanese Boy ‘Cold Water is the Drunk for Me’? Water lead to lemonade, lemonade to soda-water, soda-water to ginger-ale, ginger-ale to beer-glass—sakes of living! ”

“ HOURTIN. Never having been drunk proves nothing.
BRIGNAC. Oh, come!
HOURTIN. No. There are a large number of men who drink, perhaps, a glass of vermouth before lunch, a bottle of wine at lunch, and two or three glasses of liqueur after. The same at dinner, after an absinthe and a glass or two260 of beer in the afternoon. They would be much astonished to learn that they are thoroughly alcoholized.
BRIGNAC. Well, I do all that, and I’m as well as can be. What is more, as a baby I was very delicate. I couldn’t walk till I was eighteen months old or talk before two years. ”