Alcoholism: Reformatory Homes : Part 2

The Curse and the Cure of Strong Drink
by T. S. Arthur

(Page 10 of 25)

"Boston, August 9th, 1877.

"Dear Sir: - Your letter is received, and I am glad to learn that your mind is directed to the subject of the curse and cure of drunkenness. This is one of the largest of human fields to work in. The 'Washingtonian Home' was commenced in a very humble way, in November, 1857. An act of incorporation was obtained from the State, March 26th, 1859.

"The institution has, therefore, been in existence nearly twenty years. My connection with it has been for eighteen years - sixteen years as president. During the period of its existence the whole number of patients has been five thousand three hundred and forty-eight. Of this number, the superintendent, Dr. Day, estimates the cured at one-half. Of the remainder, it is estimated that one-half, making one-quarter of the whole, are greatly improved.

"You say, 'I take the general ground, and urge it strongly upon the reader that, without spiritual help - regeneration, in a, word - there is, for the confirmed inebriate, but little hope, and no true safety.'

"In this I fully concur. I believe in using all the agencies - medical, social, moral and religious - to bear upon the patient, and to encourage him to follow the 'straight and narrow way.' With this view, a morning service is held each day; a Sunday evening service at six o'clock, and every Friday evening a meeting, where patients relate their experience, and encourage each other in gaining power over the enemy. I have had much experience and abundant evidence that these meetings are of great value, for the reason that the patients are the principal speakers, and can do more to encourage each other than those outside of their own ranks. These meetings are usually attended by about equal numbers of both genders, and, with fine music, can be kept up with interest indefinitely.

"It would be, in my judgment, a matter of wide economy for the intelligent citizens of every city, with twenty thousand or more inhabitants, to establish a home, or asylum for inebriates. Let those who favor sobriety in the community, take a part in it, and they will soon learn how to reach the class who needs assistance. A large, old-fashioned house can be leased at small expense, and the means raised by contributions of money and other necessary articles to start. The act of doing this will soon enable those engaged in the work to learn what the wants are, and how to meet them. It is only obeying the command, 'Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.' This is the Master's work, and those who hear this invitation, as well as those who accept it, will share in its blessings.

"Those who cultivate the spirit of 'love to God, and good-will to their fellow-men,' will be surprised to see how much easier it is to do these things when they try, than when they only think about them.

"Much, of course, depends upon the superintendent, who needs to possess those genial qualities which readily win the confidence and good-will of patients, and which he readily turns to account, by encouraging them to use the means which the Creator has given them to co-operate in curing themselves. The means of cure are in the patient's own hands, and it is quite a gift to be able to make him see it."

The Washingtonian Home at Chicago

is on the same plan, in all essential respects, with that of Boston; and the reports show about the same average of cures and beneficial results. How the patient is treated in this Home may be inferred from the following extract from an article on "The Cause, Effect and Cure of Inebriety," from the pen of Prof. D. Wilkins, the superintendent, which appeared in a late number of The Quarterly Journal of Inebriety. In answer to the question, How can we best save the poor drunkard, and restore him to his manhood, his family and society, he says:

"Money, friends, relatives and all have forsaken him, his hope blasted, his ambition gone, and he feels that no one has confidence in him, no one cares for him. In this condition he wends his way to an institution of reform, a penniless, homeless, degraded, lost and hopeless drunkard. Here is our subject, how should we save him? He has come from the squalid dens, and lanes of filth, of misery, of want, of debauchery and death; no home, no sympathy and no kind words have greeted him, perhaps, for years. He is taken to the hospital. A few days pass, and he awakes from the stupidity of drink, and as he opens his eyes, what a change! He looks around, kind and gentle voices welcome him, his bed is clean and soft, the room beautiful, tasteful and pleasant in its arrangements, the superintendent, the physician, the steward and the inmates meet him with a smile and treat him as a brother. He is silent, lost in meditation.

Thoughts of other days, of other years, pass through his mind in quick succession as the tears steal gently down his cheeks. He talks therefore to himself: 'I am mistaken. Somebody does care for the drunkard. And if somebody cares for me, I should to care for myself.' Here reform first commences. In a few days, when free, to some extent, from alcohol, he is admitted to the freedom of the institution. As he enters the reading-room, the library, the amusement, the gymnasium, dining-room and spacious halls, the conviction becomes stronger and stronger that somebody is interested in the inebriate, and he should be interested in himself.

Then comes the lessons of the superintendent. He is taught that he cannot be reformed, but that he can reform himself. That God helps those only who help themselves. That he must ignore all boon companions of the cup as associates, all places where liquor is kept and sold, that, in order to reform himself, he must become a reformer, labor for the good of his brother; in short, he must shun every rivulet that leads him into the stream of intemperance, and as a cap-stone which completes the arch, that he must look to Him from whence cometh all grace and power to help in time of need.

About the Author

Timothy Shay Arthur (1809 - 1885) was a popular nineteenth-century American author. He is most famous for his temperance novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There, which helped demonize alcohol in the eyes of the American public. Virtually forgotten now, Arthur did much to articulate and disseminate the values, beliefs, and habits that defined respectable, decorous middle-class life in antebellum America.