Whether to annoy the reader with the history of my repeated attempts and failures, that is the question: for that I did attempt to throw off my shackles, honestly and earnestly, I would have the reader fairly believe.
Yet why traverse again step by step this sad pilgrimage; the reader has read similar experiences; then why trouble him with mine? Simply because in the lives of all persons there is some variation, one from another; and besides this, though I have taken some pains to read fully our opium literature, as I may properly term it, I must say that I have found it in a very demoralizing condition. That is, it does the reader, with reference to opium, more harm than good—and much more. I know this from experience, and it is one of the moving reasons why this personal history is written.
I might tire the reader’s patience over and again, by recounting my frequent attempts to throw off the accursed incubus, but shall content myself with briefly referring to such as may benefit the public, and especially those who are in danger from opium, but who as yet have not passed beyond recovery. The first attempt of any real interest I made about one year after the commencement of my unfortunate medical treatment, which resulted in fastening the habit upon me.
In order that I might be as well advised in the undertaking as convenient, I called upon a veteran physician, as well as opium eater, of the place for information and counsel. One of the consequences attending previous attempts had been diarrhœa, and a general upsetting of all the gastric functions. I did not know why this was, or that it attended all cases necessarily.
The physician gave me a great deal of information, which, taking it simply as a much better knowledge of my condition, rallied and cheered my spirits considerably. In referring to the diarrhœa, he said that it invariably followed; that leaving off the opium unlocked all the secretions, and the diarrhœa was a natural consequence. I was not using much morphia at this time. The quantity was indeed so small that the physician almost ridiculed the idea of my being in the habit at all. I knew better than that, however. He said it was hardly necessary to give anything to check the diarrhœa, in fact, that it was almost useless, and unless it actually became too severe, it was better to let it take its own course; that when it stopped of its own accord I would perceive that I was better. He gave me a few powders to take along, nevertheless, which I did not find it necessary to use.
I stopped square off. The first day I felt meanly and sleepy, and had such an influx of remorseful and melancholy thoughts, and such a complete loss of command over myself, that I could have wept the livelong day,—I felt so crushed and broken-hearted. The second day was similar to the first, except the diarrhœa now set in. On the third day I began to feel more comfortable in some respects, the sleepy, drowsy feeling having passed away; I also had gained a little more command over my feelings, though I was still morbidly sensitive, sad, and broken in spirit, and at a word would have burst into tears. The diarrhœa was rushing off at a fearful rate; but that I did not mind much,—it was carrying away my trouble, and this was what I desired. My stomach and bowels were in an unsettled, surging, and wishy-washy condition, the gastric processes so completely disturbed that my stomach was no stomach, and felt simply like a bottomless pipe that ran straight through me. I describe these phenomena now thus particularly, not because I had not observed them in previous attempts, but because I have not described any other attempts to the reader. I intend, as I proceed with this narrative to describe the effect of morphia at the beginning, and at and up to the time of which I am now writing, and its effect years after, and the phenomena observed and suffering undergone in attempting to abandon its use in the latter years.
The experienced reader will observe, from the attending phenomena which I have so far described, that I was not very deep into it at the period now referred to.
Generally, during the day (to recur to the subject in hand), did my stomach feel like a straight and bottomless pipe, but when I attempted to eat or drink I felt as though it incorporated a volcano; and every time I thought of food its whirling, surging contents threatened an eruption and overflow. Everything eaten seemed perfectly insipid and tasteless, and to fall flat upon the very bottom of my bowels. The region “round about” my epigastrium was in a state of communistic insurrection and rebellion. Nothing digested during this time, or if anything, digestion was very imperfect. Nothing remained in me long enough to pass through a complete process of digestion. I did not become hungry. To eat a meal of victuals was precisely like taking a dose of physic, only much more quick in operation. I experienced constant flushes of heat and cold (hot flushes predominating), and was in a continual perspiration, all the secretions being thrown wide open. My flesh seemed stretched tightly after the third day, and at night my limbs pained me,—principally my legs below the knees. I could do, and did, nothing but stand and gaze vacantly; too nerveless and shattered to attempt any mental labor.
My voice was hollow and weak, and sometimes almost inarticulate. After the fifth day my remorseful and melancholy thoughts and feelings gave way, to some extent, to more cheerful ones. I continued ten days without touching morphia, or anything of the kind. By that time my diarrhœa had ceased, and my stomach about the region of the epigastrium seemed drawn together as tightly as if tied in a knot. I had some appetite for food, though not much, and poor digestion. Everything was still quite tasteless to me. I craved something eternally which seemed absolutely necessary to make up the proper constitution of my stomach:—and of my happiness, also, I should add, for this is the whole truth.
The appetite for morphia, which while I was suffering I was able to control, grew much sharper after I had reached the tenth day, and my pains and physical difficulties had subsided, as it were. This is a point which I have ever observed in my case, namely, that, while undergoing severe pain or suffering, I have had power to resist appetite and carry out my purposes against the habit, but so soon as the pain or strain upon me departed, it left me collapsed in my will and powerless. But, in the instance under consideration, while my stomach was in a disorganized condition, the appetite was not near so strong as when I regained a more natural state, when it returned with an irresistible vigor. I believe the appetite destroys the will as firmly as I do that God exists.