Hypnotic drinking

The same general method can be used to break a patient of the habit of excessive drinking. The same two steps are involved in the treatment. First the negative phase: tell him that liquor will taste bad—it will turn his stomach—he will have a feeling of nausea, and will put the glass down without wanting to finish it. Then proceed to the second step and give suggestions similar to those indicated in the treatment of excessive smoking.

You must, in all cases, build up a positive expectation in the patient's mind that he is going to be helped; that the treatments will be successful; that the habit will be completely broken. Physicians, of course, know that there are two schools of thought about drinking,
one of which believes that best results can be secured through progressive reduction. They seek to get the patient to drink less and less each day or week. If he has been in the habit of taking ten
drinks a day on the average, he will decrease this first to eight; later to six; then to four; and so on. The main objection to this is that, though it appears promising, it seldom works. The patient starts out co-operatively for a time, then breaks down and abandons all restraint.

Most authorities now urge that immediate and com¬plete abstinence, with no exception and no compromise, is essential. You may wish to experiment with both of these methods on different patients, and determine for yourself which is for you and your patients the most effective. It is a question which depends largely upon the individual patient. Some patients may stop immedi¬ately and completely, leaving your future task merely to deepen and strengthen the resolve not to drink. With others, it would be impossible for them to stop at once without serious physical consequences, and the only alternative to admission of failure will be the use of the method of progressive reduction. The decision in each case is a matter for the judgment of the practitioner as to the best procedure.

In the suggestions which follow, I have followed the basic procedure of psychiatry in suggesting that the causes of the neurotic symptoms be located where-ever possible. This is in line with accepted medical standards. Through hypnosis, these causes can much more readily be brought out than through the long and tedious operation of "free association". . Facts which might require weeks or months through psychoanalytical technique are instantly revealed through hypnotic regression.

Personally I am not convinced, however, that such an investigation is always necessary. When the surgeon is called upon to operate in a case of a badly inflamed appendix, he does not pause to consider how the appendix got that way: he takes it out!

Hypnotic drinking