I discovered a few things. One was that, no matter how much fun I missed in the evening, I didn't get up with a taste in my mouth. I had no katzenjammers. After a week or so I went to sleep easily and slept like a child. Then the caramel stage arrived. I acquired a sudden craving for candy. I had not eaten any candy for years, for men who drink regularly rarely take sweets. One day I looked in a confectioner's window and was irresistibly attracted by a box of caramels. I went in and bought it, and ate half a dozen. They seemed to fill a long-felt want. The sugar in them supplied the stimulant that was lacking, I suppose. Anyhow, they tasted right good and were satisfactory; and I kept a box of caramels on my desk for several weeks and ate a few each day. Also I began to yell for ice cream and pie and other sweets with my meals.
Along about this time I developed the pharisaical stage. I looked with a great pity on my friends who persisted in drinking. I assumed some little airs of superiority and congratulated myself on my great will-power that had enabled me to quit drinking. They were steadily drinking themselves to death. I could see that plainly. There was nothing else to it. I was a fine sample of a full-blown prig. I went so far as to explain the case to one or two, and I got hooted at for my pains; so I lapsed into my condition of immense superiority and said: "Oh, well, if they won't take advice from me, who knows, let them go along. Poor chaps, I am afraid they are lost!"
It's a wonder somebody didn't take an ax to me. I deserved it. After lamenting—to myself—the sad fates of my former companions and pluming myself on my noble course, I woke up one day and kicked myself round the park. "Here!" I said. "You chump, what business have you got putting on airs about your non-drinking and parading yourself round here as a giant example of self-restraint? Where do you get off as a preacher—or a censor, or a reformer—in this matter? Who appointed you as the apostle of non-drinking? Take a tumble to yourself and close up!"
That was the beginning of the safe-and-sane stage, which still persists. It came about the end of the second month. I had lost all desire for liquor; and, though there were times when I missed the sociability of drinking fearfully, I was as steady as a rock in my policy of abstaining from drinks of all kinds. Now it doesn't bother me at all. I am riding jauntily on the wagon, without a chance of falling off.
At the time I decided it was up to me to stop this pharisaical foolishness, I took a new view of things; decided I wasn't so much, after all; ceased reprobating my friends who wanted to drink; had no advice to offer, and stopped pointing to myself as a heroic young person who had accomplished a gigantic task.
Friends had tolerated me. I wondered that they had, for I was a sad affair. Surely it was up to me to be as tolerant as they had been, notwithstanding my new mode of life. So I stopped foreboding and tried to accustom my friends to my company on a strictly water basis. The attempt was not entirely successful. I dropped out of a good many gatherings where formerly I should have been one of the bright and shining lights. There are no two ways about it—a man cannot drink water in a company where others are drinking highballs and get into the game with any effectiveness. Any person who quits drinking may as well accept that as a fact; and most persons will stop trying after a time and seek new diversions; or begin drinking again.
CHAPTER V
AFTER I QUIT
I had a good lively tilt with John Barleycorn, ranging over twenty years. I know all about drinking. I figured it this way: I have about fifteen more good, productive years in me. After that I shall lose in efficiency, even if I keep my health. Being selfish and perhaps getting sensible, I desire the remaining productive years of my life to be years of the greatest efficiency. Looking back over my drinking years, I saw, if I was to attain and keep that greatest efficiency, that was my job, and that it could not be complicated with any booze-fighting whatsoever.