Don't Take Your Nanny up the North Face of the Eiger, or , "Fun with Mr 'X' "
Mr ‘X’ is becoming obtuse, something which I don’t think would happen if we were allowed to know who he is.
He writes :
‘Mr Hitchens, thank you for a further reply and your explanation. I note the use of the word 'sudden' in the first quotation. I was in fact already aware of its presence.’
** Really? In that case, why did he write his comment as if he was not aware of this , or, alternatively, as if the distinction was unimportant?
He then says ’ I also note its absence from the second quotation, as you suggest.’
**I don’t ‘suggest’. I state. It is there in the one, and absent in the other. This is a fact, not a suggestion.
He continues: ‘ Actually, that seems to be the cause of the problem to me. That quote was: “Your body may be habituated to it, and so produce hangover-like symptoms of varying strengths when you cease using it. But you won’t die of ceasing to use it, whereas you may well die of carrying on.” It seems to unequivocally suggest that if you cease drinking alcohol, suddenly or not, it will not lead to your death.
** Unequivocally is a big word, not be used lightly. A sentence will easily collapse under its weight, if that sentence doesn’t justify its use. I think this sentence has collapsed.
Had he written ‘This unequivocally says that if you cease drinking alcohol, suddenly or not, it will not lead to your death’ , it would be clear (from reading what I said) that his claim was ill-founded, not to say mistaken, not to say…. Well, I’ll stop there out of politeness.
I did not, unequivocally, say any such thing. I made a far more general statement which did not exclude from my mind, or from the meaning of the sentence, the possibility of sudden death *triggered by* abrupt cessation, which I have never denied. Why should I? Sudden death in very ill people (and heavy drinkers are usually pretty ill) can be triggered by all sorts of things. It would be an odd world, if this were not so. Mr ‘X’ would like it if I had said what he wants me to have said, but he can’t make it so. I wish he would give up trying, and I only persist with this conversation in case some person inexperienced in logic is taken in by the sophistries of Mr ‘X’.
In fact it is obvious from his diffident, even shy use of language that Mr ‘X’ does not really believe his own claim. If it is *unequivocal* then it must *be* so, not *seem* so. But Mr ‘X’ significantly does not make himself the subject of the sentence implicitly by making his statement a simple unadorned sentence, clearly attributable to him and his view. Nor does he do so explicitly, by beginning it ‘I think…’ .. Instead, he introduces a shadowy un-named audience (of weasels, perhaps?) to whom this thing ‘seems’ to be so. Well, it may ‘seem’ so to them, whoever they are, But that doesn’t mean it is. This audience may be prejudiced, or ignorant, or anxious to believe that it is so.
The word ‘seems’ really doesn’t work in the elevated and precise realms delineated by the word ‘unequivocally’. The sight of them together is as incongruous as, say, a mountain-climber accompanied up the North Face of the Eiger by his nanny. Unequivocal things don’t seem. They are.
Nor, in the same vein, is ‘suggest’ a word you can use in company with ‘unequivocally’ . 'Suggest', by its nature, is less precise and definitive than that nice short word ‘says’, which is why Mr ‘X’ uses it. 'Suggests' is to 'says' as doggypaddling across the municipal pool in waterwings is to swimming in the deep sea. It lacks confidence. Deep down, he knows I didn’t say what he is trying to attribute to me. Either I said it, or I didn’t say it. If abrupt cessation is risky (and this is not uncommon in the case of mind-altering chemicals with potent physical side-effects, ‘antidepressants’ being another instance) then the risk (as I seem to have said quite a lot of times without it making any impact on Mr ‘X’) is from the abruptness, not from the cessation.
Let’s try a parallel, to show how essentially pettifogging and silly this effort is.
He writes : ’There is no qualifier that mentions abruptness. Perhaps it should have read something more like, "But you won’t die of ceasing to use it (unless this happens suddenly), whereas ..." or maybe "But you won’t die of ceasing to use it in a controlled and careful manner, whereas ..."
**Groan. If I say ‘People don’t die of getting out of their cars and stretching their legs during long journeys’, someone might write in (obtusely) and point out that in such a such a year , a certain number of people had indeed died by doing so , because they got out of their cars to stretch their legs , but , as part of this action, strolled into the path of a passing car, or toppled over a precipice. It would be misleadingly true but fundamentally false. They would have died in the course of getting out of their cars. But actually they would have died because they failed to take sensible precautions while doing so.
I would have avoided such a letter had I said ‘people don’t die from getting out of their cars to stretch their legs, unless they step into traffic, or over precipices’ . But would any serious point have been made? No. I can’t write every word on the basis that some opponent will deliberately misunderstand what I am saying, and attribute meanings to my words that they don’t have.
The discussion, in the general context of ‘addiction’, was about whether the action of ceasing to use alcohol would itself kill you. The word ‘cease’ means just that. Mr ‘X’ chooses to believe that it includes the meaning ‘cease abruptly’ because that is what he wants to believe. He wants to believe it because he wants to believe in the enslaving concept of ‘addiction’ and is anxious to introduce an element of real compulsion into that concept, namely the threat of death if you give up the thing to which you are ‘addicted’. He is uninterested in the following points: 1. People volunteer to take up heavy drinking. 2. They can also die from the effects of it, without ever trying to give up. Quite possibly, this is more common than dying having abruptly ceased to drink. 3. The bodily weakness which creates the risk of death after abrupt cessation stems from the habit of habitual heavy drinking itself, and would not exist if the person had not voluntarily become a heavy drinker.
That is why he is now becoming obtuse. He knows I didn’t actually say what he wants me to have said, and what he wants readers of his contributions to believe I said.
He also knows for certain I didn’t mean it, because I have told him so. (He could know anyway if he chose, because it’s clear from everything I have said that this is what I mean, but he chooses not to). He can carry this on if he wants to, (he threatens me with further discussions upon ‘addiction’) but I can’t promise not to get bored with this sort of sniping. I believe he knows perfectly well what I meant, and understands it too. He just doesn’t like it.
Oh, one last thing though I really cannot see why he needs to ask it, the answer again being perfectly obvious from everything I’ve written .
He writes : ’You took issue with my saying, "If the drugs are quickly removed, seizures, hallucinations and even death can result (contrary to what Mr Hitchens says)." For absolute clarity please, are you saying you do in fact agree with this statement?’
** I can’t possibly disagree with it. Nobody can. It's a sattement of fact, not of opinion. I feel no reason to provide any more ‘clarity’ than I have already done. If there is a lack of clarity, then it is in the beholder’s eye, not in my argument. . As I have said since the beginning of my disagreement with Dr Lovell (and as my critics have repeatedly failed to grasp), it is Dr Lovell who denies that Delirium Tremens can occur in heavy drinkers other than during abrupt withdrawal. I have never disputed his correct and experience-based statement that it *does* occur during withdrawal. I *have* disputed his assertion (which contradicts decades of skilled observation, and offers no researched reason to do so) that it does not occur under any other circumstances. I do hope that is clear now.