After the desire for it has once been eliminated, the patient cannot afford to take any alcohol whatever, and after a proper change of mental attitude he will not wish to. From alcohol he must abstain altogether, even in illness. Let no recovered alcoholic risk relapse because alcohol seems to his physician to be desirable as a medicine. Indeed, the most extreme care should be exercised to avoid medicines containing alcohol even in small percentages, and this will bar most of the proprietary remedies. When he is hungry, let the recovered alcoholic eat; when he is weary, let him be sure to rest; when he feels ill, let him be sure to consult without delay a competent physician. None of these conditions indicates a necessity for alcohol. Thus the man who is not hopeless may be saved. Society owes every alcoholic a fair opportunity to reform; it may be questioned if it owes him repeated opportunities. Many alcoholics never have been and probably never could be useful citizens. Waste of money and emotion on them is lamentable to contemplate; the sums at present thus hopelessly thrown away would aggregate enough really to restore every alcoholic actually curable. Sentimentalists do not like to admit the limitations of useful help, but those limitations do exist, and we should reckon with them. If we do, the man really curable will have all the better chance. A TEST OF THE WORTHY It is possible to discriminate between the curable and the incurable by the simplest of expedients. Usually the question, What is this man willing to do in return for help? will, with its answer, also supply the answer to the inquiry as to his future. No man of sufficient mental fiber to make helping him of any actual value is willing to accept charity. Even if he finds himself at the moment unable to repay the debt involved, he will be anxious to make it a future obligation. My fifteen years of experience have proved to me that the sense of personal obligation is of great moment in this matter. Even when it becomes necessary for a relative, employer, or friend to assist a patient by the payment of his bills, it should be regarded a part of the treatment to consider this a loan, which must be repaid, and not a gift. It follows, sadly enough, that the most hopeless alcoholic is the rich young man to whom financial obligations incurred for treatment mean nothing whatsoever, and to whom responsible employment is unknown. Indeed, it seems well-nigh impossible to reform the vagrant rich. The man who thinks that giving up his alcohol is primarily a privation, although he may admit the definite necessity of this privation, is not likely to reform permanently; but there is hope for that one who declares without apology that drinking is a bad business and that he wishes to be helped to stop it. I cannot say with too great emphasis that self-respecting pride is the main hope of the alcoholic.