Alcoholism
Alcoholism is the most persistent and destructive habit in Yozo's life, a compulsive strategy he adopts to numb his profound dread of human beings. From his first introduction to drink by Masao Horiki, alcohol becomes Yozo's primary means of escaping the unbearable tension of social existence. He drinks not for pleasure but out of desperation, and the habit steadily consumes his health, his relationships, and his ability to function, eventually leading him to morphine addiction and confinement in a mental hospital.
Origins and Early Development
Yozo's alcoholism begins during his college years in Tokyo, when he is initiated into drinking by Masao Horiki, a fellow art student who introduces him to the city's bars and brothels. Yozo quickly discovers that drink, tobacco, and prostitutes are "excellent means of dissipating (even for a few moments) my dread of human beings." He comes to feel that if he had to sell every last possession to obtain these means of escape, it would be well worth it. The habit deepens rapidly. After his father's Tokyo house is sold and Yozo moves to a gloomy lodging house in Hongo, he finds himself incapable of living alone. He rushes out every night to make the rounds of bars with Horiki, drinking cheap sake wherever they go. His monthly allowance disappears in two or three days, and he sends frantic telegrams begging for money from his family, fabricating absurd stories to make them laugh while asking for favors.
Escalation and Physical Decline
As Yozo's life unravels, his drinking intensifies. After his marriage to Yoshiko, he briefly gives up alcohol and devotes himself to drawing cartoons, but the return of Horiki and the traumatic violation of Yoshiko by a shopkeeper drive him back to drink with renewed fury. He begins to drink gin in enormous quantities, often from morning until night. A seventeen-year-old girl named Yoshiko, who works in a tobacco shop across from the bar, pleads with him to stop, but he cannot. His face coarsens markedly, and his teeth begin to fall out from the interminable drinking bouts. He copies pornographic pictures to sell secretly, needing money to buy gin. One night, wandering drunkenly behind the Ginza in heavy snow, he vomits blood for the first time, forming a "big rising-sun flag in the snow." He squats there, washes his face with clean snow, and weeps.
The Shift to Morphine
Yozo's alcoholism eventually gives way to an even more destructive addiction. A pharmacist woman, herself a crippled and unhappy widow, gives him morphine, telling him it is no more harmful than liquor. Overjoyed to escape his bondage to alcohol, Yozo begins injecting morphine daily. The injections sweep away his insecurity and fretfulness, but he quickly becomes addicted, increasing the dose from one shot a day to four. He can no longer work without the drug. His debt at the pharmacy grows frightening, and he begins a sordid affair with the pharmacist woman to obtain more morphine. He realizes that drugs are "as abominable, as foul—no, fouler—than gin," but by then he is an out-and-out addict.
Consequences and Final State
The cumulative effects of alcoholism and morphine addiction destroy Yozo's body and mind. He is eventually bundled into a car by Flatfish and Horiki and taken to a mental hospital, where he is locked in a ward with male lunatics. After his release, he is sent to live in a dilapidated house at a hot spring on the coast, looked after by an ugly old servant named Tetsu. His chest ailment fluctuates; he occasionally coughs blood. At twenty-seven, his hair has turned much greyer, and most people take him for over forty. He has neither happiness nor unhappiness—only the conviction that "everything passes." The alcoholism that began as a desperate escape from fear has left him a prematurely aged, physically broken, and socially isolated reject, disqualified from human life.
