How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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morphine, we should counsel immediate consultation with
a reputable psychiatrist who understands both the
medical and the psychological treatment of these
conditions. Like all other devices for the evasion of
reality, morphine and alcohol diminish in effectiveness
the more they are used, while their toxicity increases
with time. It is not the province of this book to outline
the treatment of these conditions, but the writer hopes
that the analysis of the psychological mechanisms at the
basis of both morphine addiction and alcoholic excess
will encourage those who find themselves the victims of
these abuses of nature’s devices, to examine their life
patterns and face their problems with greater courage.
Neither the chronic alcoholic nor the drug addict
understands the uselessness of desertion, the inevitability
of final accountings, nor his eventual responsibility for
his acts. Both these habits may be permanently broken
if the individual will apply himself to the task of facing
reality with the same assiduity with which he has run
away from it. A constructive scheme of living is within
the reach of everyone. Once the constructive pattern
has been initiated, tfie further use of both alcohol and
morphine becomes unnecessary.
The basis of the use of both alcohol and morphine is
an over-valuation of pleasure as an end in itself.
Hedonism, as we pointed out in a previous chapter, is
in itself the philosophy of the discouraged. Pleasure is
not the end of life : it is an attribute, like happiness, of
the good life. It cannot be gained by running away
from life. The cult of the greatest possible pleasure with
the least amount of pain, so common in our neurotic
civilization, is an essentially infantile quest, as out of
place in the machine age as the quest for the fountain
of youth or the gold of Eldorado.
Men and women who believe that pleasure can be
gained in the pursuit of pleasure and the flight from pain
are chronic believers in Santa Claus. Pleasure, gained in
sport, in games, in recreation, is a necessary and important
means of attaining the relaxation and renewal of energy