6. Abe Lincoln provides wisdom on alcoholism

By Tom O'Connell

In February 1842 Abraham Lincoln, who was then 33 years old, gave a talk to the Washington Temperance Society in Springfield, Illinois. The text of the speech, "Lincoln on Alcoholism," was sent to me by an Arizona reader, and has some profound insights.

Lincoln starts out saying, "In my judgment such of us who have never fallen victims have been spared more by the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have." Here, in humility, he stresses the physical dependence and the escalating appetite that affects the alcoholic after taking the first drink.

Decades ahead of science and social theorists, Lincoln says victims of alcoholism are "to be pitied and compassioned, just as are the heirs of consumption and other hereditary diseases." And their "failing" should be treated as "a misfortune, and not as a crime, or even as a disgrace."

Progress is slow, and our society had to get beyond the middle of the 20th century before we stopped jailing alcoholics for being impaired, even when they had not committed any crimes. 

On the availability of intoxicating liquors, Lincoln says, "The practice of drinking them is just as old as the world itself." As for methods of recovery, he contends, "Those who have suffered by intemperance personally, and have reformed, are the most powerful and efficient instruments to push the reformation to ultimate success."

The 19th century Washingtonian movement utilized such thinking and had widespread success in working with drunkards. But the movement failed because it got too involved in politics and building institutions. However, in our century Alcoholics Anonymous has succeeded. Wisely, AA has avoided public controversy and has adopted  a principle of corporate poverty similar to that of St. Francis of Assisi. A healthy movement was nurtured, and recovering alcoholics now freely come together in mutual help groups where character is developed and spiritual growth leads to healthy abstinence.

Always compassionate, Lincoln says, "There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into the vice..." As for an alcoholic  whose appetite for alcohol has grown "ten or a hundred-fold stronger, and more craving than any natural appetite can be," he requires "a most powerful moral effort" to break the habit, and "needs every moral support and influence that can possibly be brought to his aid...."

Acknowledging that giving up the habit is easier said than done, he says, "Men ought not in justice to be denounced for yielding to it in any case, or giving it up slowly, especially when they are backed by interest, fixed habits, or burning appetites."

He also condemns the attitude that "habitual drunkards were utterly incorrigible." Without mincing words, he describes this attitude as "repugnant to humanity, so uncharitable, so cold-blooded and feelingless...." 

Linking the concepts of political and moral freedom, he says, "When the victory shall be complete, when there shall be neither slave nor drunkard on the earth, how proud the title of that land which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both." What an amazingly idealistic spirit Abraham Lincoln had. And what a way with words.

- Back -