then to sit comfortably in his study with a book and an unlimited
supply of brandy. He took one cognac after another and every
evening he was completely intoxicated. He married a young wife and
felt the need of changing his habits, the more as he himself saw
symptoms of his excess which alarmed him. When he came to me, I saw
that he was seriously wishing to give up, and he understood himself
that there was only the one way, namely, complete abstinence. He
felt that he could not reach it by his own will power alone and
sought my aid. I hypnotized him six times, suggesting at first a
reduction to four drinks, then to two, then to one and then to pure
mineral water. I concentrated my effort on stirring up the
antagonistic attitude, the dislike of the smell of brandy and the
aversion to its taste. The effect was excellent. After the fifth
time the mental torture which he had felt in the first afternoons
had completely disappeared. I considered further hypnotizing
superfluous and felt sure after the sixth time that the man was
cured. For about a year he remained abstinent, but in the meantime
his professional life brought severe disappointments, and with cool
consideration he decided that he might have at least some pleasure
from life and forget its miseries. Accordingly after a year he
determined again to take some brandy in his study, and of course,
that led rapidly to an increase of the dose and today he is
probably at the old point. And yet it may be said with correctness
that psychotherapy had done its duty. If at the right moment before
he took the first step again, even the slightest counter-suggestion
had been applied, the disastrous second development could have been
easily avoided.

My experience indicates the best results where the suggestions are from
the start directed as much against the unfavorable social conditions,
with their temptations and impulses to imitation, as against the
alcoholic beverages themselves. On the whole it is easier to break the
vicious drinking habits of the social drinker than those of the lonely
drinker, a point which ought to be well considered in settling the
complex problem of prohibition versus the temperance movement.

The situation of alcoholism repeats itself in still more ruinous forms
with morphinism and cocainism, vices which grow in this country t