Quite to the contrary.

This is the stage for active interference.

Restraint, prohibition, quarantine, anything may be resorted to, to arrest the farther advance of the disease.

Instead of being taught that the habit of occasional drinking is merely a moral _lapsus_ (not the most powerful restraining motive always), the subject of it should be made to understand that it is the commencement of a malady, which, if unchecked, will overwhelm him in ruin, and, compared with which, cholera and yellow fever are harmless.

He should be impressed with the fact that the early stage is the one when recuperation is most easy--that the will then has not lost its power of control, and that the fatal propensity is not incurable.