Chapter IX - Insanity part 1Chapter IX - Insanity part 1
Psychology of Alcoholism, The by George Barton Cutten (1874 - 1962)
A historical psychological study examines the close links between alcoholism and insanity using statistics, expert opinions, and striking case histories. It outlines how heredity, chronic drinking, and rare states like somnambulism and dipsomania can contribute to severe mental disturbance.
54:39•1 Apr 2026
Alcohol and Insanity: A Stark Psychological Portrait from the Asylum Era
Episode Overview
- Specialists repeatedly link alcohol and insanity, with some calling alcohol the leading cause of mental illness after heredity.
- Statistics from multiple countries suggest a significant proportion of asylum admissions are directly or indirectly tied to alcohol use.
- Case studies illustrate how chronic alcoholism can end in dementia, profound memory loss, and personality change.
- Rare conditions such as alcoholic somnambulism and alcoholic epilepsy show that people can act apparently normally, even commit crimes, with no later memory.
- Dipsomania is described as a periodic, irresistible craving for alcohol in otherwise capable people, often rooted in nervous instability and family predisposition.
“"Alcohol is, next to heredity, the most common single cause of insanity."”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This classic psychological text takes a stark, clinical look at what chronic drinking can do to the mind, long before modern neuroscience arrived on the scene. Drawing on statistics from asylums and hospitals across the US and Europe, Dr George Barton Cutten lays out just how closely alcoholism and insanity seem to track one another. You’ll hear figures like Dr A.W.
Dunning’s assertion that “alcohol is, next to heredity, the most common single cause of insanity,” and repeated claims that heavy drinking fills a sizable share of asylum beds. Rather than focusing on moral failure, the chapter treats alcoholism as evidence of “more or less unsoundness of mind” in many cases, quoting Dr Crothers’ view that excessive drinking is often a sign of slow brain disease.
At the same time, other specialists argue that alcohol itself can be the direct cause of serious mental disorders, especially when combined with vulnerable heredity.
The narrative walks through case studies that show how alcohol can be linked to different forms of mental disturbance: chronic alcoholism sliding into dementia, rare episodes of alcoholic somnambulism where people commit complex acts with no later memory, alcohol‑related epilepsy, and the haunting picture of dipsomania – periodic, irresistible drinking bouts in people who may be highly intelligent and deeply ashamed.
The style is formal and heavily referenced, but the stories are vivid enough to stick with you: the farmer who had to keep a notebook while drunk to piece together his business dealings, or the respected doctor who secretly cached bottles everywhere before each destructive binge. Anyone wanting a historically grounded, psychologically detailed look at how alcohol can erode sanity – and how heredity and environment make some people far more vulnerable – will find plenty to think about here.
How might hearing these older medical voices change the way you look at addiction today?
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