Some alcoholics were sent to “lunatic asylums” for the mentally ill,  and they were also put on restricted diets as a form of punishment for their alcohol excesses. The cold shower punishment was a common treatment for alcoholism at hospitals of the time.  Poverty-stricken alcoholics in the early 19th century were also often warehoused into almshouses,  along with mentally ill people,  the blind, those with syphilis, and others that society did not know what to do about (sometimes including orphaned children).  Sometimes alcoholics were placed in overcrowded prisons.

Lobotomies and Enforced Sterilizations 
In the early 20th century,  some institutionalized alcoholic women were told that if they wished to leave the institution where they had been placed because of their alcohol dependence,  then they would have to undergo sterilization. Doctors reasoned that these women would have children who were alcoholic if the women were not sterilized, and thus sterilizing them would save the world from more alcoholics. Interestingly, the same logic was not applied to male alcoholics, many of whom also bore children.

Another treatment for some alcoholics was the frontal lobotomy,  which involves severing connections to the prefrontal cortex in the brain.  It was first performed as a cure for alcoholism by physicians Walter Freeman and James Watts in 1936. The treatment failed, and according to William White in his book Slaying the Dragon,  one patient who had just received a lobotomy reacted this way:  “Following the procedure,  the patient dressed and, pulling a hat down over his bandaged head,  slipped out of the hospital in search of a drink.  Freeman and Watts spent Christmas Eve, 1936, searching the bars for this patient, who they eventually found and returned to the hospital in a state of extreme intoxication.”

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Mark S. Gold, M.D. and Christine Adamec

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REFERENCES

1. Amethyst Initiative.  Statement.  Available online.  Accessed March 1, 2009.
2. Beirness,  Douglas J.,  and Erin E.  Beasley.  Alcohol and Drug Use Among Drivers: British Columbia Roadside Survey, 2008. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, 2009.
3. Berridge,  Virginia,  and Sarah Mars.  “History of Addictions.”  Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health 58 (2003): 747–750.
4. Blanco,  Carlos,  M.D.,  et al.  “Mental Health of College Students and Their Non-College-Attending Peers: Results from the National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions.”  Archives of General Psychiatry 65, no. 12 (2008): 1,429–1,437.
5. Blocker,  Jack S.,  Jr.  “Did Prohibition Really Work: Alcohol Prohibition as a Public Health Innovation.” American Journal of Public Health 96,  no.  2 (2006): 233–243.

Full References  »