Samuel G. Blythe - Cutting It Out: How to Get on the Waterwagon and Stay There

FIRST off, let me state the object of the meeting: This isto be a record of sundry experiences centering round a stern resolve to get on the waterwagonand a sterner attempt to stay there.It is an entirely personal narrativeof a strictly personal set of circumstances. It is not a temperance lecture, or a temperance tract, or achunk of advice, or a shudderingrecital of the woes of a horrible example, or a warning, or an admonition or anything at all but a plaintale of an adventure that startedout rather, vaguely and wound uprather satisfactorily.

I am no brand that was snatchedfrom the burning; no sot whopicked himself or was picked fromthe gutter; no drunkard who almost wrecked a promising career;no constitutional or congenitalsouse. I drank liquor the sameway hundreds of thousands of mendrink it drank liquor and attended to my business, and got alongwell, and kept my health, and provided for my family, and maintained my position in the community. I felt I had a perfect rightto drink liquor just as I had a perfect right to stop drinking it. Inever considered my drinking inany way immoral.

I was decent, respectable, a gentleman, who drank only with gentlemen and as a gentleman shoulddrink if he pleases. I didn't carewhether any one else drank anddo not now. I didn't care whetherany one else cared whether I drankand do not now. I am no reformer, no lecturer, no preacher. I quitbecause I wanted to, not becauseI had to. I didn't swear off, nortake any vow, nor sign any pledge.I am no moral censor. It is evenpossible that I might go out thisafternoon and take a drink. I amquite sure I shall not but I might.As far as my trip into TeetotalLand is concerned, it is an individual proposition and nothing else. Iam no example for other men whodrink as much as I did, or more,or less but I assume my experiences are somewhat typical, for Iam sure my drinking was very typical; and a recital of those experiences and the conclusions thereonis what is before the house.

I quit drinking because I quitdrinking. I had a very fair battingaverage in the Booze League asgood as I thought necessary; andI knew if I stopped when my record was good the situation wouldbe satisfactory to me, whether itwas to any other person or not.Moreover, I figured it out that thetime to stop drinking was when itwasn't necessary to stop not whenit was necessary. I had been observing during the twenty yearsI had been drinking, more or less,and I had known a good many menwho stopped drinking when thedoctors told them to. Furthermore,it had been my observation thatwhen a doctor tells a man to stopdrinking it usually doesn't makemuch difference whether he stopsor not. In a good many cases hemight just as well keep on and diehappily, for he's going to die anyhow; and the few months he willgrab through his abstinence willnot amount to anything when themiseries of that abstinence are dulychalked up in the debit column.

Therefore, applying the cold,hard logic of the situation to it,I decided to beat the liquor to it.

That was the reason for stopping purely selfish, personal, individual, and not concerned withthe welfare of any other person onearth just myself. I had takengood care of myself physically andI knew I was sound everywhere. Iwasn't sure how long I could keepsound and continue drinking. SoI decided to stop drinking and keepsound. I noticed that a good manymen of the same age as myself andthe same habits as myself were beginning to show signs of wear andtear. A number of them blew upwith various disconcerting maladies and a number more died. Soonafter I was forty years of age Inoticed I began to go to funeralsoftener than I had been doingfunerals of men between forty andforty-five I had known socially andconvivially; that these funerals occurred quite regularly, and thatthe doctor's certificate, more timesthan not, gave Bright 's Disease andother similar diseases in the causeof -death column. All of these funerals were of men who were goodfellows, and we mourned theirloss. Also we generally took a fewdrinks to their memories.

Then came a time when this funeral business landed on me likea pile-driver. Inside of a year fouror five of the men I had knownbest, the men I had loved best, themen who had been my real friendsand my companions, died, one afteranother. Also some other friendsdeveloped physical derangements Iknew were directly traceable to toomuch liquor. Both the deaths andthe derangements had liquor asa contributing if not as a directcause. Nobody said that, of course;but I knew it.

So I held a caucus with myself.I called myself into convention anddiscussed the proposition somewhat like this:

"You are now over forty yearsof age. You are sound physicallyand you are no weaker mentallythan you have always been, so faras can be discovered by the outside world. You have had a lotof fun, much of it complicated withthe conviviality that comes withdrinking and much of it not so complicated; but you have done yourshare of plain and fancy drinking,and it hasn't landed you yet. Thereis absolutely no nutriment in beingdead. That gets you nothing savea few obituary notices you willnever see. There is even less inbeing sick and sidling around ineverybody's way. It's as sure assunset, if you keep on at your present gait, that Mr. John Barleycornwill land you just as he has landeda lot of other people you know andknew. There are two methods ofprocedure open to you. One is tokeep it up and continue having thefun you think you are having andtake what is inevitably coming toyou. The other is to quit it whilethe quitting is good and live a fewmore years that may not be sorosy, but probably will have compensations."

I viewed it from every angle Icould think of. I knew what sortof a job I had laid out to tackle ifI quit. I weighed the whole thingin my mind in the light of my acquaintances, my experiences, myposition, my mode of life, my business. I had been through it manytimes. I had often gone on thewaterwagon for periods varyingin length from three days to threemonths. I wasn't venturing intoany uncharted territory. I knewevery signpost, every crossroad,every foot of the ground. I knewthe difficulties knew them byheart. I wasn't deluding myselfwith any assertions of superiorwill-power or superior courageor superior anything. I knew Ihad a fixed daily habit of drinking,and that if I quit drinking Ishould have to reorganize the entire works.

TILLS took some time. I didn'tdash into it. I had done thatbefore, and had dashed out againjust as impetuously. I revolvedthe matter in my mind for someweeks. Then I decided to quit.Then I did quit. Thereby hangsthis tale.

I went to a dinner one night thatwas a good dinner. It was a dinner that had every appurtenancethat a good dinner should have, including the best things to drinkthat could be obtained, and lashings of them. I proceeded at thatdinner just as I had proceeded atscores of similar dinners in my timehundreds of them, I guess andtook a drink every time anybodyelse did. I was a seasoned drinker.I knew how to do it. I went homethat night pleasantly jingled, butno more. I slept well, ate a goodbreakfast and went down to business. On the way down I decidedthat this was the day to make theplunge. Having arrived at thatdecision, I went out about threeo'clock that afternoon, drank aScotch highball a big, man's-sizedone as a doch-an-doris, and quit.That was almost a year ago. Ihaven 't taken a drink since. It isnot my present intention ever totake another drink; but I am nottying myself down by any vows.It is not my present intention, Isay; and I let it go at that.