1. The first condition of recovery is a prompt and permanent
abandonment of the ruinous habit. Without a faithful adherence to this
prohibitory law on the part of the patient all medication on the
part of the physician will assuredly fail. The patient must plainly
understand that future prospects, character, health, and life itself,
depend on an unfaltering resistance to the morbid solicitation;
with the assurance, however, that a due perseverance will eventually
render, what now seems like a resistless and overwhelming propensity,
not only controllable but perfectly loathsome and undesirable.
2. Keep the mind employed by interesting the patient in the various
topics of the day, and social features of the community.
3. Plenty of bodily out of door exercise, hoeing in the garden,
walking, or working on the farm; of course not too heavy work must be
indulged in.
4. If the patient is weak and very much emaciated, cod liver oil is an
excellent remedy.
5. DIET. The patient should live principally on brown bread, oat meal,
graham crackers, wheat meal, cracked or boiled wheat, or hominy, and
food of that character. No meats should be indulged in whatever; milk
diet if used by the patient is an excellent remedy. Plenty of fruit
should be indulged in; dried toast and baked apples make an excellent
supper. The patient should eat early in the evening, never late at
night.