It might be the assembling of a particularly jolly crowd; a touch
of anger against my architect or against a thieving stone-mason
working on my barn; the death of my favourite horse in a barbed
wire fence; or news of good fortune in the morning mail from my
dealings with editors and publishers. It was immaterial what the
excuse might be, once the desire had germinated in me. The thing
was: I WANTED alcohol. At last, after a score and more of years
of dallying and of not wanting, now I wanted it. And my strength
was my weakness. I required two, three, or four drinks to get an
effect commensurate with the effect the average man got out of one
drink.
One rule I observed. I never took a drink until my day’s work of
writing a thousand words was done. And, when done, the cocktails
reared a wall of inhibition in my brain between the day’s work
done and the rest of the day of fun to come. My work ceased from
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my consciousness. No thought of it flickered in my brain till
next morning at nine o’clock when I sat at my desk and began my
next thousand words. This was a desirable condition of mind to
achieve. I conserved my energy by means of this alcoholic
inhibition. John Barleycorn was not so black as he was painted.
He did a fellow many a good turn, and this was one of them.
And I turned out work that was healthful, and wholesome, and
sincere. It was never pessimistic. The way to life I had learned
in my long sickness. I knew the illusions were right, and I
exalted the illusions. Oh, I still turn out the same sort of
work, stuff that is clean, alive, optimistic, and that makes
toward life. And I am always assured by the critics of my super-
abundant and abounding vitality, and of how thoroughly I am
deluded by these very illusions I exploit.
And while on this digression, let me repeat the question I have
repeated to myself ten thousand times. WHY DID I DRINK? What
need was there for it? I was happy. Was it because I was too
happy? I was strong. Was it because I was too strong? Did I
possess too much vitality? I don’t know why I drank. I cannot
answer, though I can voice the suspicion that ever grows in me. I
had been in too-familiar contact with John Barleycorn through too
many years. A left-handed man, by long practice, can become a
right-handed man. Had I, a non-alcoholic, by long practice become
an alcoholic?
I was so happy. I had won through my long sickness to the
satisfying love of woman. I earned more money with less
endeavour. I glowed with health. I slept like a babe. I
continued to write successful books, and in sociological
controversy I saw my opponents confuted with the facts of the
times that daily reared new buttresses to my intellectual
position. From day’s end to day’s end I never knew sorrow,
disappointment, nor regret. I was happy all the time. Life was
one unending song. I begrudged the very hours of blessed sleep
because by that much was I robbed of the joy that would have been
mine had I remained awake. And yet I drank. And John Barleycorn,
all unguessed by me, was setting the stage for a sickness all his
own.
The more I drank the more I was required to drink to get an
equivalent effect. When I left the Valley of the Moon, and went
to the city, and dined out, a cocktail served at table was a wan
and worthless thing. There was no pre-dinner kick in it. On my
way to dinner I was compelled to accumulate the kick–two
cocktails, three, and, if I met some fellows, four or five, or
six, it didn’t matter within several. Once, I was in a rush. I
had no time decently to accumulate the several drinks. A
brilliant idea came to me. I told the barkeeper to mix me a
double cocktail. Thereafter, whenever I was in a hurry, I ordered
double cocktails. It saved time.
One result of this regular heavy drinking was to jade me. My mind
grew so accustomed to spring and liven by artificial means that
without artificial means it refused to spring and liven. Alcohol
became more and more imperative in order to meet people, in order
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to become sociably fit. I had to get the kick and the hit of the
stuff, the crawl of the maggots, the genial brain glow, the
laughter tickle, the touch of devilishness and sting, the smile
over the face of things, ere I could join my fellows and make one
with them.
Another result was that John Barleycorn was beginning to trip me
up. He was thrusting my long sickness back upon me, inveigling me
into again pursuing Truth and snatching her veils away from her,
tricking me into looking reality stark in the face. But this came
on gradually. My thoughts were growing harsh again, though they
grew harsh slowly.
Sometimes warning thoughts crossed my mind. Where was this steady
drinking leading? But trust John Barleycorn to silence such
questions. “Come on and have a drink and I’ll tell you all about
it,” is his way. And it works. For instance, the following is a
case in point, and one which John Barleycorn never wearied of
reminding me:
I had suffered an accident which required a ticklish operation.
One morning, a week after I had come off the table, I lay on my
hospital bed, weak and weary. The sunburn of my face, what little
of it could be seen through a scraggly growth of beard, had faded
to a sickly yellow. My doctor stood at my bedside on the verge of
departure. He glared disapprovingly at the cigarette I was
smoking.
“That’s what you ought to quit,” he lectured. “It will get you in
the end. Look at me.”
I looked. He was about my own age, broad-shouldered, deep-
chested, eyes sparkling, and ruddy-cheeked with health. A finer
specimen of manhood one would not ask.
“I used to smoke,” he went on. “Cigars. But I gave even them up.
And look at me.”
The man was arrogant, and rightly arrogant, with conscious well-
being. And within a month he was dead. It was no accident. Half
a dozen different bugs of long scientific names had attacked and
destroyed him. The complications were astonishing and painful,
and for days before he died the screams of agony of that splendid
manhood could be heard for a block around. He died screaming.
“You see,” said John Barleycorn. “He took care of himself. He
even stopped smoking cigars. And that’s what he got for it.
Pretty rotten, eh? But the bugs will jump. There’s no forefending
them. Your magnificent doctor took every precaution, yet they got
him. When the bug jumps you can’t tell where it will land. It
may be you. Look what he missed. Will you miss all I can give
you, only to have a bug jump on you and drag you down? There is no
equity in life. It’s all a lottery. But I put the lying smile on
the face of life and laugh at the facts. Smile with me and laugh.
You’ll get yours in the end, but in the meantime laugh. It’s a
pretty dark world. I illuminate it for you. It’s a rotten world,
when things can happen such as happened to your doctor. There’s
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only one thing to do: take another drink and forget it.”
And, of course, I took another drink for the inhibition that
accompanied it. I took another drink every time John Barleycorn
reminded me of what had happened. Yet I drank rationally,
intelligently. I saw to it that the quality of the stuff was of
the best. I sought the kick and the inhibition, and avoided the
penalties of poor quality and of drunkenness. It is to be
remarked, in passing, that when a man begins to drink rationally
and intelligently that he betrays a grave symptom of how far along
the road he has travelled.
But I continued to observe my rule of never taking my first drink
of the day until the last word of my thousand words was written.
On occasion, however, I took a day’s vacation from my writing. At
such times, since it was no violation of my rule, I didn’t mind
how early in the day I took that first drink. And persons who
have never been through the drinking game wonder how the drinking
habit grows!
CHAPTER XXXII
When the Snark sailed on her long cruise from San Francisco there
was nothing to drink on board. Or, rather, we were all of us
unaware that there was anything to drink, nor did we discover it
for many a month. This sailing with a “dry ” boat was malice