This is the extreme of alcoholism, and death the only ending to it, as a habitual condition.

Alcohol seems a necessary evil; for that its occasional beneficence can modify or neutralize the long list of woe and crime and brutality following in its train, is more than doubtful.
"Whatever good can come from alcohol, or whatever evil, is all included in that primary physiological and luxurious action of the agent upon the nervous supply of the circulation....

If it be really a luxury for the heart to be lifted up by alcohol, for the blood to course more swiftly through the brain, for the thoughts to flow more vehemently, for words to come more fluently, for emotions to rise ecstatically, and for life to rush on beyond the pace set by nature; then those who enjoy the luxury must enjoy it--with the consequences." And now, at the end of our talks together, friends, there is yet another word.

Much must remain unsaid in these narrow limits; but they are wide enough, I hope, to have given the key by which you may find easy entrance to the mysteries we all may know, indeed must, if our lives are truly lived.

If through intemperance, in meat or drink, in feeling or thought, you lessen bodily or mental power, you alone are accountable, whether ignorant or not.