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You are naturally virtuous. Your drinking friend is naturally
and proudly bad. He thinks you do not know what you are talking
about when you ask him to give up drink. ----
When you start out to cure a vicious friend by arguing with
him, do you ever reflect how little you know what goes on within
him? Suppose that in his nerves there is a craving ten thousand
times louder and stronger than your most virtuous arguments?
What good will those arguments do? No use whispering poetry to a
man in a boiler shop. No use humming a love song in a whirlwind.
The poetry, the song, are out of place. Any sort of argument
save the most powerful is wasted on a man whose soul is filled
with the racket of a dominating passion, such as drink or
gambling. ----
Just two things can cure a drunkard--two things, and nothing else
on earth.
First, his own cold reason and strength of will.
Second, the growth within him of some passion stronger than his
love of drink.
Love of his children, love of a woman, will cure a drunkard (but
we earnestly advise any woman to make sure he is cured before
trusting her future to him). Ambition--which includes every form
of vanity and self-delusion--will cure a drunkard, and has cured
many thousands. Even the miser's passion of economy may outweigh
love of drink and cure the lesser desire.
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