t,' or missed one
injection, all the good would be undone. This was dinged into their ears
all the time. Same as many things are done in the Catholic religion--to
hold the people. My old mate said that, as far as the medical treatment
was concerned, he could do all that was necessary himself. But it was
the sympathy that counted, especially the sympathy between the patients
themselves. They always got hold of a new patient and talked to him
and cheered him up; he nearly always came in thinking he was the most
miserable wretch in this world. And it comforts a man and strengthens
him and makes him happier to meet another man who's worse off or sicker,
or has been worse swindled than he has been. That's human nature.... And
a man will take draughts from a nurse and eat for her when he wouldn't
do it for his own wife--not even though she had been a trained nurse
herself. And if a patient took a bad turn in the night at the Boozers'
Home and got up to hunt the snakes out of his room, he wouldn't be sworn
at, or laughed at, or held down; no, they'd help him shoo the snakes out
and comfort him. My old mate said that, when he got better, one of the
new patients reckoned that he licked St Pathrick at managing snakes.
And when he came out he didn't feel a bit ashamed of his experience.
The institution didn't profess to cure anyone of drink, only to mend up
shattered nerves and build up wrecked constitutions; give them back some
will-power if they weren't too far gone. And they set my old mate on his
feet all right. When he went in his life seemed lost, he had the horror
of being sober, he couldn't start the day without a drink or do any
business without it. He couldn't live for more than two hours without
a drink; but when he came out he didn't feel as if he wanted it. He
reckoned that those six weeks in the institution were the happiest he'd
ever spent in his life, and he wished the time had been longer; he says
he'd never met with so much sympathy and genius, and humour and human
nature under one roof before. And he said it was nice and novel to be
looked after and watched and physicked and bossed by a pretty nurse in
uniform--but I don't suppose he told his wife that. And when he came out
he never took the trouble to hide the fact that he'd been in. If any of
his friends had a drunkard in the family, he'd recommend the institution
and do his best to get him into it. But when he came out he firmly
believed that if he took one dri