There is nothing inherently more sociable in the drinking of wine than
in the drinking of grape-juice, or coffee, or chocolate, or tea.
Indeed, one may well ask why the chief social bond between men should
consist in drinking liquids side by side! Games and sports, in which
wit is pitted against wit, or which bring men together in happy
cooperation, together with the great resource of conversation, are
more socially binding than any drinks. There will, indeed, be a temporary
social hardship for many abstainers until the custom is generally
broken up; one runs the risk of being thought by the heedless a prig
and a Puritan. But that is a small price to pay for one's health and
one's influence on others.
(3) More important than any of these causes is the craving for a
stimulant. The monotony of work, the fatigue toward the end of the
day, the severity of our Northern climate, the longing for intenser
living, lead men to seek to apply the whip to their flagging energies.
This stimulus to the body is, however, largely if not wholly, illusory.
The mental-emotional effects, noted in the following paragraph, give
the drinker the impression that he is physically fortified; but objective
tests show that, after a very brief period, the dominant effect upon
the organism is depressant. The apparent increase in bodily warmth,
so often experienced, is a subjective illusion; in reality alcohol
lowers the temperature and diminishes resistance to cold.
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