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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29292-8.txt b/29292-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db91ae7 --- /dev/null +++ b/29292-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1066 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Game, by Samuel G. Blythe + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Old Game + A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon + +Author: Samuel G. Blythe + +Release Date: July 2, 2009 [EBook #29292] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD GAME *** + + + + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +_The Old Game_ + +_A Retrospect After Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon_ + +_By Samuel G. Blythe_ + + +_Author of "The Price of Place," "Cutting It Out," etc. etc._ + + +_New York +George H. Doran Company_ + + +COPYRIGHT, 1914 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + +_The Old Game_ + + +_CONTENTS_ + + PAGE + I. INTRODUCTORY 9 + + II. A BACKWARD GLANCE FROM A HILLOCK OF ABSTINENCE 15 + + III. GETTING THE ALCOHOL OUT OF ONE'S SYSTEM 21 + + IV. THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED IN VAIN 29 + + V. A THIRSTY NATION'S NEED 37 + + VI. THE JEERS OF THE SMART ALECS 45 + + VII. MORE TIME FOR OTHER THINGS 51 + +VIII. LEISURE PUT TO GOOD USES 59 + + IX. ALCOHOL AND THE TOLL IT TAKES 67 + + + + +_I: Introductory_ + + +In a few minutes it will be three years and a half since I have taken a +drink. In six years, six months, and a few minutes it will be ten years. +Then I shall begin to feel I have some standing among the chaps who have +quit. Three years and a half seems quite a period of abstinence to me, +but I am constantly running across men who have been on the wagon for +five and ten and twelve and twenty years; and I know, when it comes to +merely not taking any, I am a piker as yet. However, I have +well-grounded hopes. The fact is, a drink could not be put into me +except with the aid of an anesthetic and a funnel; but, for all that, I +am no bigot. + +I look at this non-drinking determination of mine as a purely individual +proposition. Let me get the stage set properly at the beginning of my +remarks. I have no advice to offer and no counsel to give. Most of my +best friends drink and I never have said and never shall say them nay. +It is up to them--not up to me. I have no prejudices in the matter. If +my friends want to drink I am for that--for them. + +These things are mentioned to establish my status in the premises. I +have no sermon to preach--no warning to convey. I have no desire to +impress my convictions on the subject of drinking liquor on any person +whatever. That is not my mission. So far as I am concerned, all persons +are hereby given full and free permission to eat, drink and be merry to +such extent as they may prescribe for themselves. I set no limit, +suggest no reforms, urge no cutting down or cutting out. Go to it--and +peace be with you! And for an absolute teetotaler I reckon I buy as many +drinks for others as any one in my class. + +Pardon me for inserting these puny details in what I have to say. +Triflingly personal as they are they seem necessary in order to +establish my viewpoint. So far as drinking is concerned I look at it +with a mind that is open and tolerant--except in one instance. That one +instance concerns myself personally and individually. My mind is closed +and intolerant in my own case. I have quit--and quit forever; but that +does not make me go round urging others to quit, or preaching at them, +or trying to reform them. They can reform or not, as they dad-blamed +please. To be sure I have my own interior ideas on what some of them +should do; but I never have and never shall do anything with those ideas +but keep them closely to myself. + +Therefore, to resume: In a few minutes it will be three years and a half +since I have taken a drink. There is no more alcohol in my system than +there is in a glass of spring water. The thought of putting alcohol into +my system is as absent from my mind as is the thought of putting benzine +into it, or gasoline, or taking a swig of shoe-polish. It never occurs +to me. The whole thing is out of my psychology. My palate has forgotten +how it tastes. My stomach has forgotten how it feels. My head has +forgotten how it exhilarates. The next-morning fur has forsaken my +tongue. It is all over! + + + + +_II: A Backward Glance from a Hillock of Abstinence_ + + +Looking back at the old game from this hillock of abstinence--it is not +an eminence like those occupied by the twelve and fifteen year +boys--looking back at the old game from this slight elevation, it is +perhaps excusable for a man who put in twenty years at the old game to +set the old game off against the new game and make up a debit and credit +account just for the fun of it. + +Just for the fun of it! My kind of drinking was always for the fun of +it--for the fun that came with it and out of it and was in it--and for +no other reason. I was no sot and no souse. All the drinks I took were +for convivial purposes solely, except on occasional mornings when a too +convivial evening demanded a next morning conniver in the way of a +cocktail or a frappé, or a brandy-and-soda, for purposes of +encouragement and to help get the sand out of the wheels. + +Wherefore, what have I personally gained by quitting and what have I +personally lost? How does the account stand? Is it worth while or not? +Is there anything in convivial drinking that is too precious and too +pleasant to be sacrificed for whatever pleasures or rewards there are in +abstinence? What are the big equations? These are questions that +naturally occur in a consideration of the subject; and these are the +questions I shall try to answer, answering them entirely from my own +experience and judging them from my own viewpoint, leaving the +application of my conclusions to those who care to apply them to their +own individual cases. + +It takes two years for a man who has been a convivial drinker to get any +sort of proper perspective on both sides of the proposition. Three years +is better, and five years, I should say, about right. Still, after +three years and a half I think I can draw some conclusions that may have +a certain general application--though, as I have said, I make no +pretense of applying them generally. So far as I am able to judge, a man +who has been a more or less sincere drinker for twenty years does not +arrive at a point before two years of abstinence where he can take an +impartial and non-alcoholic survey. + +At first he is imbued with the spirit of the new convert, fired with +zeal and considerable of a Pharisee. Also, he is inhabited by the +lingering thoughts of what he has renounced--the fun and the frolic of +it; and he has set himself aside, in a good measure, from the friends he +has made in the twenty years of joyousness. + + + + +_III: Getting the Alcohol Out of One's System_ + + +A scientist who has made a study of the subject told me, early in my +water-wagoning, that it takes eighteen months for a man to get the +alcohol entirely out of his system--provided, of course, he has been a +reasonably consistent consumer of it for a period of years. I think that +is correct. Of course he did not mean--nor do I--that the alcohol +actually remains in one's system, but that the sub-acute effects +remain--that the system is not entirely reorganized on the new basis +before that time; that the renovation is not complete. + +I do not know exactly how to phrase it; but, as nearly as I can express +it, the condition amounts to this: After a man has been a reasonably +steady drinker for a period of years, and quits drinking, there remain +within him mental and some physical alcoholic tendencies. These are +acute for the earlier stages, and gradually come to be almost +subconscious--that is, though there is no physical alcoholization of his +body, the mental alcoholization has not departed. I do not mean that his +mind or mental powers are in any way affected to their detriment. What I +do mean is that there remains in every man a remembrance, the ghost of a +desire, the haunting thoughts of how good a certain kind of a drink +would taste, and a regret for joys of companionship with one's fellows +in the old way and in the old game, which takes time--and a good deal of +time--to eradicate. + +It becomes a sort of state of mind. The body does not crave liquor. All +that is past. There is no actual desire for it. Indeed, the thought of +again taking a drink may be physically repugnant; but there is a sort of +phantom of renounced good times that hangs round and worries and +obtrudes in blue hours and lonesome hours and letdown hours--a +persistent, insistent sort of ghost-thought that flits across the mind +from time to time and stimulates the what's-the-use portion of a man's +thinking apparatus into active, personal inquiry, based on the _dum +vivimus_, _vivamus_ proposition. + +I know this will be disputed by many men who have quit drinking and who +beat themselves on the chests and boast: "I never think of it! Never, I +assure you! I quit; and after a few days the thought of drinking never +entered my mind." I have only one reply for these persons; and, phrasing +it as politely as I can, I say to them that they are all liars. +Moreover, they are the worst sort of liars, for they not only lie to +others but commit the useless folly of lying to themselves. They may +think they do not lie; but they do. + +There is not one of them--not one--who is not visited by the ghost of +good times, the wraith of former fun, now and then; or one who does not +wonder whether it is worth the struggle and speculate on what the harm +would be if he took a few for old time's sake. The mental yearn comes +back occasionally long after the physical yearn has vanished. My +compliments to you strong-minded and iron-willed citizens who quit and +forget--but you don't! You may quit, but it is months and months before +you forget. + +The ghost appears and reappears; but gradually, as time goes on, the +visits are less frequent--and finally they cease. The ghost has given +you up for a bad job. If any man has quit and has stuck it out for two +years he can be reasonably sure he will not be haunted much after he +enters his third year. + +Mental impressions and desires last far longer than physical ones, and +by that time the mind has been reorganized along the new lines. Then +comes the sure knowledge that it is all right; and after that time any +man who has fought his fight and falls can be classed only as an idiot. +What, in the name of Bacchus, is there to compensate a man in drinking +again--after he has won his fight--for all the troubles and rigors of +the battle from which he has emerged victorious? If he had nerve enough +to go through his novitiate and get his degree, why should he +deliberately return to the position he voluntarily abandoned? What has +he been fighting for? Why did he begin? + + + + +_IV: Those Who Have Suffered in Vain_ + + +Owing to a worldwide acquaintance among men who drink my personal +determination to quit still excites the patronizing inquiry, "Still on +the wagon?" when I meet old friends. That used to make me angry, but it +does not any more. I say, "Yes!" take my mineral water and pass on to +other things. But the position of those who quit and go back to it, and +seek to excuse the return by saying, "Oh, I only stopped to see whether +I could. I found it was easy; so I began again!"--now is that not the +sublimation of piffle? The fact that any man who salves himself with +this sort of statement--and hundreds do--did go back does not prove that +he could quit, but that he could not! + +I can understand why a man, having tried both sides of the game, should +conclude that the rigors and restraints of not drinking overbalance the +compensations and take up the practice again; but I cannot understand +why a man should be so great a hypocrite with himself as to assign a +reason like that for his renewal of the habit. No man quits just to see +whether he can quit. Every man quits because he personally thinks he +ought to quit--for whatever his personal reason may be. And he begins +again because he concludes the game is not worth playing, which means +that he is not able to play it--not that it lacks merit. + +When you come to sum it all up general reasons for drinking are as +absurd as general reasons for not drinking. It is entirely an individual +proposition. I concluded it was a bad thing for me to drink. I know now +I was right. But--and here is the point--it may be a good thing for my +neighbor to drink. He must judge of that himself. Personally I cannot +see that it is a good thing for any man to drink; but I am no judge. I +am influenced in my conclusions, not by a broad view of the situation as +it applies to my fellows but by an intensely narrow view as it applies +to myself. Hence what I have concluded in the matter may be +uncharitable--may smack of Puritanism and may not be supported by +general facts; but I am writing about my own experiences, not those of +any other person whatever. + +My occupation takes me to all parts of the world and has for twenty-five +years. It has caused me to make friends with all sorts of people in all +sorts of places and in all sorts of circumstances. I early discovered +that, as I was a gregarious person and intent on doing the best for +myself that I possibly could, it was necessary for me to cultivate the +friendship of men of affairs; and it became apparent to me that many men +of affairs take an occasional drink. Naturally I took an occasional +drink with them, having no prejudices in the matter and being of open +mind. I am big and husky, and mix well; and the result was I acquired as +extensive a line of convivial acquaintances, across this country and +across Europe, as any person of your acquaintance. To some extent my +friendship with these men was predicated on having a few drinks with +them. I fell in with their ways or they fell in with mine; and as my +association in almost every city, among the men with whom I worked and +the men I met, is based largely on entertainment of one kind or +another--generally with some alcohol in it--my life was ordered that way +for two decades. And I had a heap of fun. There was no sottishness about +it, no solitary drinking, no drinking for drink's sake, no drunkenness. +It was all jollity and really innocent enough--a case of good fellows +having a good time together. + +However, there was a good deal of rum consumed one way and another. Then +three and a half years ago, after a long caucus with myself, I quit. I +decided I had played that game long enough and would begin to play +another. It may be I did not know or figure out as concretely as I have +figured out since just what I was doing when I quit. It may be! Still, +that has nothing to do with the case. I quit and I have stayed quit--and +I have quit forever. So all that is coming to me in the premises is +based on my own determination, as all has been that has come, and I have +no complaints to make; and if I made any I should expect to get a punch +in the eye for making them--and deserve one. + +Passing over the physical and mental sides of the fight--which, I may +assure you, were annoying enough to suit the most exacting advocate of +the old policy of mortifying the flesh and disciplining the mind--there +came eventually the necessity of learning how to keep in the game on a +water basis--or, rather, of learning how to keep in such portions of the +game as seemed worth while on a soft-drink schedule. I was too old to +form many new ties. I had accumulated a farflung line of drinking men as +friends. They were mostly the men with whom association was a +pleasure--as in politics the villains are always the good fellows--and I +did not want to lose them, however willing they were to lose me. + +There came, however, with my mineral-water view, a discriminatory sense +that was not enjoyed in the highball period--that is to say, I found, +observed with the cold and mayhap critical eye of abstinence, that a +number of those with whom I was wont to associate needed the softening +glow radiated by the liquor in me to make them as good as I had +previously thought they were. There were some I found I did not miss, +and more came to the same conclusion about me. They were all +right--fine!--when seen or heard through ears and eyes that had been +affected by the genial charitableness of a couple or three cocktails; +but when seen or heard with no adventitious appliances on my part save +ginger ale they were rather depressing--and I am quite sure they held +the same views about me. + + + + +_V: A Thirsty Nation's Need_ + + +So I sloughed off a good many and a good many sloughed off me; and a +working basis was secured. At first I tried to keep along with all the +old crowd, but that was impossible in two ways. I never realized until +after I was on the water-wagon what extremes in piffle I used to think +was witty conversation, and they discovered speedily that my +non-alcoholic communications fitted in neither with the spirit nor the +spirits of the occasion. + +The crying need of the society of this country is a non-alcoholic +beverage that can be drunk in quantities similar to the quantities in +which highballs can be drunk. A man who is a good, handy drinker can lap +up half a dozen highballs in the course of an evening--and many lap up +considerably more than that number and hold them comfortably; but the +man does not exist who can drink half of that bulk of water or ginger +ale, or of any of the first-aids-to-the-non-drinkers, and not be both +flooded and foundered. The human stomach will easily accommodate +numerous seidels of beer, poured in at regular or irregular intervals; +but the human stomach cannot and will not take care of a similar number +of seidels of water, or of any other liquid that comes in the guise of +stuff that neither cheers nor inebriates. I have never looked up the +scientific reason for this. I state it as a fact, proved by my own +attempts to accomplish with water what I used easily to do with +highballs, Pilsner and other naughty substances. + +The reformer boys will tell you there is no special need for such a +drink; that water is all-sufficient. Of course everybody knows the +reformer boys think the world is going to hell in a hanging basket +unless each person in it comports himself and herself as the reformer +boy dictates! But it is not so. And it is so that the social +intercourse, the interchange of ideas between man and man, both in this +country and in every other country, is often predicated on drinking as a +concomitant. + +We may bewail this, but we cannot dodge it. Hence any man who has been +used to the normal society of his fellows along the lines by which I +became used to that society, and along the lines by which ninety per +cent of the men in this country become used to that society, must make a +bluff at drinking something now and then. If he is not a partaker of +alcohol he has his troubles in finding a medium for his imbibing, unless +he goes the entire limit and cuts out the society of all friends who +drink, which leaves him in a rather sequestrated and senseless +position--not, of course, that there are not plenty of interesting men +who do not drink, but that so many interesting men do. + +So the problem of a non-drinker resolves itself to this: How can he +continue in the companionship of the men he likes, and who possibly like +him, and not drink? How can he remain a social animal, with the +fellowship of his kind, and stay on the water-wagon? Well, it is a +difficult problem, especially for persons situated as I was, who had +spent twenty years accumulating a large assortment of acquaintances who +used the stuff in moderation, but with added social zest to their goings +and comings. + +When a man first stops drinking he is likely to become censorious. That +starts him badly. Also he is likely to become serious. That marks him +down fifteen points out of a possible thirty. He flocks by himself, +thinking high thoughts about his purity of purpose, his vast wisdom, his +acute realization of the dangers that formerly beset his path and now +beset the path of all those who are not walking side by side and in +close communion with him. He pins medals all over himself, pats himself +on the chest, and is much better than his kind. + +Then he wakes up--unless he is a chump and a Pharisee. If he is one or +both of those he never wakes up, but soon passes beyond the pale. When +he wakes up--assuming he has intelligence enough to do that--he gets an +acute realization that if he holds off in that manner much longer even +the elevator boys will not speak to him; and he comes to a point where +he finds out that the wisest of the wise saws is that a man who is in +Rome should do as the Romans do, with such modifications as his personal +circumstances may demand. Personally I found the most advantageous +course to pursue was to drop the highfalutin air of extreme virtue that +oppressed me and depressed my friends for the first few months and +consider the whole thing as a joke. + + + + +_VI: The Jeers of the Smart Alecs_ + + +I refused to take it seriously. It was in reality the most serious thing +in the world; but that was inside. Outside it was a thing to josh, to +laugh over, to stand chaffing about--I listened to interminable +comments, all couched in the same form--but, nevertheless, a thing to be +held to grimly and firmly. So I went along whenever I had a chance. +After the ghosts ceased haunting and the desire had gone I found I could +cheer up on skillfully absorbed mineral water. I am free to say that a +good deal of the conversation I heard bored me a heap; but I did not let +on. And the result has been that I am no longer forced to flock by +myself, but can break into almost any company of good fellows and be as +good a fellow as any of them, via the ginger-ale or mineral-water +process of conviviality. + +All the asses are not solidungulate quadrupeds--a good many of them +belong to the genus homo. These are found in every center of population +and are the boys who never cease wondering how it is that any man can or +does do anything they themselves do not do, and continually comment +thereon. Ordinarily when a man of my type quits drinking the fact is +accepted after the probationary period has passed, and no further +comment is made on it. Not so with the asinine contingent. They have the +same patter to prattle unceasingly about it. They have the same comment, +the same bromides to get off, the same sneers to sneer and the same +jeers to jeer. If there was no other reason--and there are a +hundred--why I shall not do any more drinking, I shall never taste +another drop just to show these fools what fools they are when they run +up against a real determination. + +It took time to get into this water-cheerful stage--a good deal of time, +a good deal of determination, a good deal of maneuvering; and it meant +the overlooking of many things that did not appeal to me, as well as +considerable charity on the part of the folks with whom I desired to +remain friendly--more on their part than on mine, I am sure. + +However, it has worked out reasonably well; and as I have tried it in +New York, in Washington, in San Francisco and Boston, and in most cities +between, in London and Paris and Berlin, and in other portions of the +globe where I formerly performed under the other schedule, I think I am +safe in saying that it can be done if one sets his mind to it--that is, +a non-drinker need not necessarily be a hermit. Of course he can find +plenty of non-drinkers with whom to associate if he makes the search; +but, and it saddens me to say it, many of the non-drinking classes are +not so interesting as they might be. + +However, that is only one phase of it--an important phase, but not the +only one. Doubtless it will seem erroneous to many persons, who have not +been accustomed to the sort of relaxation that full-lived men take, to +say this is important; and I freely admit that the highbrow basis is +somewhat different from the highball basis. + +I grant that seekers after conversation about dull and academic +subjects may not find that conversation at a social gathering sought for +relaxation after the day's work is over; but not all conversation of the +kind most red-blooded and live men who do things crave consists of +joining in barber-shop chords of: "How dry I am! How dry I am! Nobudee +knows how dry I am!" + + + + +_VII: More Time for Other Things_ + + +And there is this great advantage: Your resources for the entertainment +of yourself are vastly developed when you do not drink. When you do +drink, about all you do is drink--that is, the usual formula, day by +day, is to get through work and then go somewhere where there are +fellows of your kind and have a few. Now when you do not drink you find +there are other things that occur to you as worth while. It is not +necessary to hurry to the club or elsewhere to meet the crowd and listen +to the newest story, or hear the comment on the day's doings, punctuated +by the regular tapping of the bell for the waiter and the pleasing: +"What'll it be, boys?" You do that now and then, but you do not do it +every day. + +After mature consideration of the subject I have concluded that the +greatest, the most satisfactory, the finest attribute of a non-alcoholic +life is the time it gives you to do non-alcoholic things. Time! That is +the largest benefit--time to read, to think, to get out-of-doors, to see +pictures, to go to plays, to meet and mingle with new people, to do your +own work in. A man who has the convivial-drinking habit is put to it on +occasions to find time for anything but conviviality aside from his +regular occupation. It seems imperative to him that he shall get where +the crowd is, and stay there. He might miss something--a drink maybe, or +two, or a laugh, or a yarn, or the pleasures of association with folks +he likes. These are important when visualized alcoholically. They make +up the most of that kind of a life. + +Do not understand that I am deprecating these pleasures. I am not. I +have already explained how strenuously I worked out a program that +enables me to enjoy them now and then; but the fact that I have quit +drinking makes them incidental to the general scheme instead of the +whole scheme. It gives me an opportunity to pick and choose a bit. It +relieves me of the necessity of being at the same places at the same +time every afternoon or evening. Whereas I used to be the boss and John +Barleycorn the foreman, I have now discharged John and am both boss and +foreman; and I run the game to suit myself and have time for other +things. + +Let me impress that on you--the glory and gladness of time! It requires +rather persistent application to be a good fellow. One cannot do much +else. However, when a man has arrived at that stage where he can retain +at least a portion of his good fellowship and also can be two or three +of the other kinds of a worth-while fellow--to himself, at least--he has +gained on the old gang by about a hundred per cent. + +As it is now, no chums come shouting in to urge me to go and have one; +nobody drops round at five o'clock in the afternoon to hurry me along to +the favorite table at the club; nobody suggests about seven o'clock that +we all 'phone home and stay down and have dinner together; the old plan +of having a luncheon that lasts an hour and a half or two hours in the +best part of the day is rarely broached. There are few telephone calls +after dinner urging an immediate descent on a gathering where there is +something coming off--all these things are left to my choice and are not +taken as a matter of usual procedure, predicated on the circumstances of +the plan of living. + +A non-drinking man is the master of his own time. If he wants +sociability he can go and get it, up to such limits as he personally can +attain for himself in his water-consuming capacity. A drinking man is +not master of his time. He may think he is, but he is not. He is the +creature of a habit that may be harmless, but which surely is insistent; +and the habit dictates what he shall do with his leisure. + +Time! Why, such new vistas of what can be done with time that was wasted +in former years have opened before me that time seems to me the greatest +luxury in the world--time that was formerly wasted and now is used! I +hope that does not sound priggish. I have tried to show that I value +highly the privilege of associating with my fellows, and that I like +their ways and their talk and their company. What I mean by this pæan to +time is that I can have company in a modified measure, if I choose; and +that I can and do have other things that no man who has a daily drinking +habit can or does have. + + + + +_VIII: Leisure Put to Good Uses_ + + +Take books--though books may not be a fair test of time employed in my +case, for I always have read books in great numbers--but take books: In +the past three years and a half I have read as many books--real +books--as I read in the ten years preceding. I have read books I was +always intending to read, but never got round to. I have kept up with +the new good ones and have helped myself to several items of interesting +discovery and knowledge that in the old days would have been known about +only through newspaper reports. I have developed a good many half-facts +that were in my mind. I have classified and arranged a lot of scattering +information that had seeped into me notwithstanding my engagements with +the boys. + +I have had time to go to see some pictures. I have had time to hear +some music. I have had time to visit a lot of interesting places, such +as great industrial concerns and factories, which I always intended to +see but never quite reached. I have had time to make a few +investigations on my own account. I have met and talked to a large +number of people who were formerly outside my range of vision. And I +have done better work in my own line--I have more time for it. + +If I have lost any friends they were friends whose loss does not bother +me. I find that all the true-blue chaps, the worth-while ones, though +they look--in most instances--on my non-drinking idiosyncrasy with +amused tolerance, have not lost any respect or affection for me, and are +just as true blue as they formerly were. Most of them drink, but I fancy +some of them wish they did not; and none of them holds my strange +behavior up against me. + +To be sure, they often have their little gatherings without me; but that +is not because they do not like me any the less, and is because I do not +happen, in my new rôle, to fit in. There are times, you know, when even +the most enthusiastic ginger-ale specialist is not _persona grata_. We +have reached a common basis of understanding. The real man is tolerant. +Intolerance is the vice of the narrow man. + +Now, then, we come to the real question, which is: With our society +organized as it is, with men such men as they are, with conditions that +surround life as it is organized, with things as they stand to-day--is +it worth while to drink moderately, or is it not? The answer, based +solely on my own experience, is that it is not. Looking at the matter +from all its angles I am convinced that the best thing I ever did for +myself was to quit drinking. I will go further than that and say it is +my unalterable conviction that alcohol, in any form, as a beverage never +did anything for any man that he would not have been better without. + +I can now sit back and contrast the old game with the new. The +comparisons fall under two general heads--physical and mental. The +physical gain is so obvious that even those who have not experienced it +admit it, and those who have experienced it comment on it as some +miracle of health that has been attained. Any man--I do not care who he +is--who was the sort of a drinker I was, who will stop drinking long +enough to get cooled out will feel so much better in every way that he +will be hard put to it to give a reason for ever beginning again. + +Take my own case: I was fat, wheezy, uric-acidy, gouty, rheumatic--not +organically bad, but symptomatically inferior. I was never quite +normal--no man is normal who has a few drinks each day, though most men +boast they never were under the influence of liquor in their lives, and +all that sort of tommyrot--and never quite up to the mark. + +Now I weigh one hundred eighty-five pounds, which is my normal weight, +for that is what I weighed when I was twenty-one; and I have not varied +five pounds in more than two years. I used to weigh two hundred and +fifty, which was the result of our friend Pilsner beer and his +accomplices. All the gouty, rheumatic, wheezy symptoms are gone. If +there is anything the matter with me the best doctors in these United +States cannot discover what it is. My eye is clear, instead of somewhat +bleary. I have dropped off every physical burden and infirmity I had, +and I am in the pink of condition. I have no fear of heart, kidneys, or +of any other organ. I have no pains, no aches, and no head in the +morning. I sleep as a well man should sleep and I eat as a well man +should eat. I am forty-five years old and I feel as if I were +twenty--and I am, to all intents and purposes, physically. + +So much for that side of it. Mentally I have a clearer, saner, wider +view of life. I am afflicted by none of the desultoriness superinduced +by alcohol. I do not need a bracer to get me going or a hooker to keep +me under way. I find, now that I know the other side of it, that the +chief mental effect of alcohol, taken as I took it, is to induce a +certain scattering and casualness of mind. Also, it induces a lack of +definiteness of view and a notable failure of intensive effort. A man +evades and scatters and exaggerates and makes loose statements when he +drinks. + + + + +_IX: Alcohol and the Toll it Takes_ + + +And let me say another thing: One of the reasons I quit was because I +noticed I was going to funerals oftener than usual--funerals of friends +who had been living the same sort of lives for theirs as I had been +living for mine. They began dropping off with Bright's disease and other +affections superinduced by alcohol; and I took stock of that feature of +it rather earnestly. The funerals have not stopped. They have been more +frequent in the past three years than in the three years preceding--all +good fellows, happy, convivial souls; but now dead. Some of them thought +that I was foolish to quit too! + +And there are a few cases of hardening arteries I know about, and a +considerable amount of gout and rheumatism, and some other ills, among +the gay boys who japed at me for quitting. Gruesome, is it not? And God +forbid that I should cast up! But if you quit it in time there will be +no production of albumin and sugar, no high blood pressure, no swollen +big toes and stiffened joints. + +If health is a desideratum, one way to attain a lot of it is to cut out +the booze. The old game makes for fun, but it takes toll--and never +fails! + +I have tried it both ways. I can see how a man who never took any liquor +cannot understand much of what I have written, and I can see how a man +who has the same sort of habits I had can think me absurd in my +conclusions; but a man who has played both ends of it certainly has some +qualifications as a judge. And, as I stated, I have set down here only +my own personal ideas on the subject. + +As I look at it there is no argument. The man who does not drink has all +the better of the game. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Game, by Samuel G. 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Blythe. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0px; + } /* page numbers */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .tbrk {margin-bottom: 2em;} + + .mono {font-family: monospace;} + + /* index */ + + div.index ul { list-style: none; } + div.index ul li span.mono {font-family: monospace;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Game, by Samuel G. Blythe + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Old Game + A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon + +Author: Samuel G. Blythe + +Release Date: July 2, 2009 [EBook #29292] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD GAME *** + + + + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<h1><i>The Old Game</i></h1> + +<h3><i>A Retrospect After Three<br />and a Half Years on<br />the Water-wagon</i></h3> + +<h3><i>By</i></h3> + +<h2><i>Samuel G. Blythe</i></h2> + +<h4><i>Author of "The Price of Place,"<br />"Cutting It Out," etc. etc.</i></h4> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h2><i>New York<br />George H. Doran Company</i></h2> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1914<br />By George H. Doran Company</span></h4> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<h2><i>CONTENTS</i></h2> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#I_Introductory">I.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Introductory</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#II_A_Backward_Glance_from_a_Hillock_of_Abstinence">II.</a></span> <span class="smcap">A Backward Glance from a +Hillock of Abstinence</span> </li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#III_Getting_the_Alcohol_Out_of_Ones_System">III.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Getting the Alcohol Out of +One's System</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#IV_Those_Who_Have_Suffered_in_Vain">IV.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Those Who Have Suffered +in Vain</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#V_A_Thirsty_Nations_Need">V.</a></span> <span class="smcap">A Thirsty Nation's Need</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#VI_The_Jeers_of_the_Smart_Alecs">VI.</a></span> <span class="smcap">The Jeers of the Smart Alecs</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#VII_More_Time_for_Other_Things">VII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">More Time for Other Things</span></li> +<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span><span class="mono"> <a href="#VIII_Leisure_Put_to_Good_Uses">VIII.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Leisure Put to Good Uses</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#IX_Alcohol_and_the_Toll_it_Takes">IX.</a></span> <span class="smcap">Alcohol and the Toll It Takes</span></li> +</ul> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="I_Introductory" id="I_Introductory"></a><i>I: Introductory</i></h2> + +<p>In a few minutes it will be three years and a half since I have taken a +drink. In six years, six months, and a few minutes it will be ten years. +Then I shall begin to feel I have some standing among the chaps who have +quit. Three years and a half seems quite a period of abstinence to me, +but I am constantly running across men who have been on the wagon for +five and ten and twelve and twenty years; and I know, when it comes to +merely not taking any, I am a piker as yet. However, I have +well-grounded hopes. The fact is, a drink could not be put into me +except with the aid of an anesthetic and a funnel; but, for all that, I am no bigot.</p> + +<p>I look at this non-drinking determination of mine as a purely individual +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>proposition. Let me get the stage set properly at the beginning of my +remarks. I have no advice to offer and no counsel to give. Most of my +best friends drink and I never have said and never shall say them nay. +It is up to them—not up to me. I have no prejudices in the matter. If +my friends want to drink I am for that—for them.</p> + +<p>These things are mentioned to establish my status in the premises. I +have no sermon to preach—no warning to convey. I have no desire to +impress my convictions on the subject of drinking liquor on any person +whatever. That is not my mission. So far as I am concerned, all persons +are hereby given full and free permission to eat, drink and be merry to +such extent as they may prescribe for themselves. I set no limit, +suggest no reforms, urge no cutting down or cutting out. Go to it—and +peace be with you! And for an absolute teetotaler I reckon I buy as many +drinks for others as any one in my class.</p> + +<p>Pardon me for inserting these puny details in what I have to say. +Triflingly personal as they are they seem necessary in order to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>establish my viewpoint. So far as drinking is concerned I look at it +with a mind that is open and tolerant—except in one instance. That one +instance concerns myself personally and individually. My mind is closed +and intolerant in my own case. I have quit—and quit forever; but that +does not make me go round urging others to quit, or preaching at them, +or trying to reform them. They can reform or not, as they dad-blamed +please. To be sure I have my own interior ideas on what some of them +should do; but I never have and never shall do anything with those ideas +but keep them closely to myself.</p> + +<p>Therefore, to resume: In a few minutes it will be three years and a half +since I have taken a drink. There is no more alcohol in my system than +there is in a glass of spring water. The thought of putting alcohol into +my system is as absent from my mind as is the thought of putting benzine +into it, or gasoline, or taking a swig of shoe-polish. It never occurs +to me. The whole thing is out of my psychology. My palate has forgotten +how it tastes. My stomach has forgotten how it feels.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> My head has +forgotten how it exhilarates. The next-morning fur has forsaken my tongue. It is all over!</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="II_A_Backward_Glance_from_a_Hillock_of_Abstinence" id="II_A_Backward_Glance_from_a_Hillock_of_Abstinence"></a><i>II: A Backward Glance from a Hillock of Abstinence</i></h2> + +<p>Looking back at the old game from this hillock of abstinence—it is not +an eminence like those occupied by the twelve and fifteen year +boys—looking back at the old game from this slight elevation, it is +perhaps excusable for a man who put in twenty years at the old game to +set the old game off against the new game and make up a debit and credit +account just for the fun of it.</p> + +<p>Just for the fun of it! My kind of drinking was always for the fun of +it—for the fun that came with it and out of it and was in it—and for +no other reason. I was no sot and no souse. All the drinks I took were +for convivial purposes solely, except on occasional mornings when a too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +convivial evening demanded a next morning conniver in the way of a +cocktail or a frappé, or a brandy-and-soda, for purposes of +encouragement and to help get the sand out of the wheels.</p> + +<p>Wherefore, what have I personally gained by quitting and what have I +personally lost? How does the account stand? Is it worth while or not? +Is there anything in convivial drinking that is too precious and too +pleasant to be sacrificed for whatever pleasures or rewards there are in +abstinence? What are the big equations? These are questions that +naturally occur in a consideration of the subject; and these are the +questions I shall try to answer, answering them entirely from my own +experience and judging them from my own viewpoint, leaving the +application of my conclusions to those who care to apply them to their +own individual cases.</p> + +<p>It takes two years for a man who has been a convivial drinker to get any +sort of proper perspective on both sides of the proposition. Three years +is better, and five years, I should say, about right. Still, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +three years and a half I think I can draw some conclusions that may have +a certain general application—though, as I have said, I make no +pretense of applying them generally. So far as I am able to judge, a man +who has been a more or less sincere drinker for twenty years does not +arrive at a point before two years of abstinence where he can take an +impartial and non-alcoholic survey.</p> + +<p>At first he is imbued with the spirit of the new convert, fired with +zeal and considerable of a Pharisee. Also, he is inhabited by the +lingering thoughts of what he has renounced—the fun and the frolic of +it; and he has set himself aside, in a good measure, from the friends he +has made in the twenty years of joyousness.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="III_Getting_the_Alcohol_Out_of_Ones_System" id="III_Getting_the_Alcohol_Out_of_Ones_System"></a><i>III: Getting the Alcohol Out of One's System</i></h2> + +<p>A scientist who has made a study of the subject told me, early in my +water-wagoning, that it takes eighteen months for a man to get the +alcohol entirely out of his system—provided, of course, he has been a +reasonably consistent consumer of it for a period of years. I think that +is correct. Of course he did not mean—nor do I—that the alcohol +actually remains in one's system, but that the sub-acute effects +remain—that the system is not entirely reorganized on the new basis +before that time; that the renovation is not complete.</p> + +<p>I do not know exactly how to phrase it; but, as nearly as I can express +it, the condition amounts to this: After a man has been a reasonably +steady drinker for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> period of years, and quits drinking, there remain +within him mental and some physical alcoholic tendencies. These are +acute for the earlier stages, and gradually come to be almost +subconscious—that is, though there is no physical alcoholization of his +body, the mental alcoholization has not departed. I do not mean that his +mind or mental powers are in any way affected to their detriment. What I +do mean is that there remains in every man a remembrance, the ghost of a +desire, the haunting thoughts of how good a certain kind of a drink +would taste, and a regret for joys of companionship with one's fellows +in the old way and in the old game, which takes time—and a good deal of +time—to eradicate.</p> + +<p>It becomes a sort of state of mind. The body does not crave liquor. All +that is past. There is no actual desire for it. Indeed, the thought of +again taking a drink may be physically repugnant; but there is a sort of +phantom of renounced good times that hangs round and worries and +obtrudes in blue hours and lonesome hours and letdown hours—a +persistent, insistent sort of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> ghost-thought that flits across the mind +from time to time and stimulates the what's-the-use portion of a man's +thinking apparatus into active, personal inquiry, based on the <i>dum +vivimus</i>, <i>vivamus</i> proposition.</p> + +<p>I know this will be disputed by many men who have quit drinking and who +beat themselves on the chests and boast: "I never think of it! Never, I +assure you! I quit; and after a few days the thought of drinking never +entered my mind." I have only one reply for these persons; and, phrasing +it as politely as I can, I say to them that they are all liars. +Moreover, they are the worst sort of liars, for they not only lie to +others but commit the useless folly of lying to themselves. They may +think they do not lie; but they do.</p> + +<p>There is not one of them—not one—who is not visited by the ghost of +good times, the wraith of former fun, now and then; or one who does not +wonder whether it is worth the struggle and speculate on what the harm +would be if he took a few for old time's sake. The mental yearn comes +back occasionally long after the physical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> yearn has vanished. My +compliments to you strong-minded and iron-willed citizens who quit and +forget—but you don't! You may quit, but it is months and months before you forget.</p> + +<p>The ghost appears and reappears; but gradually, as time goes on, the +visits are less frequent—and finally they cease. The ghost has given +you up for a bad job. If any man has quit and has stuck it out for two +years he can be reasonably sure he will not be haunted much after he +enters his third year.</p> + +<p>Mental impressions and desires last far longer than physical ones, and +by that time the mind has been reorganized along the new lines. Then +comes the sure knowledge that it is all right; and after that time any +man who has fought his fight and falls can be classed only as an idiot. +What, in the name of Bacchus, is there to compensate a man in drinking +again—after he has won his fight—for all the troubles and rigors of +the battle from which he has emerged victorious? If he had nerve enough +to go through his novitiate and get his degree,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> why should he +deliberately return to the position he voluntarily abandoned? What has +he been fighting for? Why did he begin?</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="IV_Those_Who_Have_Suffered_in_Vain" id="IV_Those_Who_Have_Suffered_in_Vain"></a><i>IV: Those Who Have Suffered in Vain</i></h2> + +<p>Owing to a worldwide acquaintance among men who drink my personal +determination to quit still excites the patronizing inquiry, "Still on +the wagon?" when I meet old friends. That used to make me angry, but it +does not any more. I say, "Yes!" take my mineral water and pass on to +other things. But the position of those who quit and go back to it, and +seek to excuse the return by saying, "Oh, I only stopped to see whether +I could. I found it was easy; so I began again!"—now is that not the +sublimation of piffle? The fact that any man who salves himself with +this sort of statement—and hundreds do—did go back does not prove that +he could quit, but that he could not!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p><p>I can understand why a man, having tried both sides of the game, should +conclude that the rigors and restraints of not drinking overbalance the +compensations and take up the practice again; but I cannot understand +why a man should be so great a hypocrite with himself as to assign a +reason like that for his renewal of the habit. No man quits just to see +whether he can quit. Every man quits because he personally thinks he +ought to quit—for whatever his personal reason may be. And he begins +again because he concludes the game is not worth playing, which means +that he is not able to play it—not that it lacks merit.</p> + +<p>When you come to sum it all up general reasons for drinking are as +absurd as general reasons for not drinking. It is entirely an individual +proposition. I concluded it was a bad thing for me to drink. I know now +I was right. But—and here is the point—it may be a good thing for my +neighbor to drink. He must judge of that himself. Personally I cannot +see that it is a good thing for any man to drink; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> I am no judge. I +am influenced in my conclusions, not by a broad view of the situation as +it applies to my fellows but by an intensely narrow view as it applies +to myself. Hence what I have concluded in the matter may be +uncharitable—may smack of Puritanism and may not be supported by +general facts; but I am writing about my own experiences, not those of +any other person whatever.</p> + +<p>My occupation takes me to all parts of the world and has for twenty-five +years. It has caused me to make friends with all sorts of people in all +sorts of places and in all sorts of circumstances. I early discovered +that, as I was a gregarious person and intent on doing the best for +myself that I possibly could, it was necessary for me to cultivate the +friendship of men of affairs; and it became apparent to me that many men +of affairs take an occasional drink. Naturally I took an occasional +drink with them, having no prejudices in the matter and being of open +mind. I am big and husky, and mix well; and the result was I acquired as +extensive a line of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>convivial acquaintances, across this country and +across Europe, as any person of your acquaintance. To some extent my +friendship with these men was predicated on having a few drinks with +them. I fell in with their ways or they fell in with mine; and as my +association in almost every city, among the men with whom I worked and +the men I met, is based largely on entertainment of one kind or +another—generally with some alcohol in it—my life was ordered that way +for two decades. And I had a heap of fun. There was no sottishness about +it, no solitary drinking, no drinking for drink's sake, no drunkenness. +It was all jollity and really innocent enough—a case of good fellows +having a good time together.</p> + +<p>However, there was a good deal of rum consumed one way and another. Then +three and a half years ago, after a long caucus with myself, I quit. I +decided I had played that game long enough and would begin to play +another. It may be I did not know or figure out as concretely as I have +figured out since just what I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> was doing when I quit. It may be! Still, +that has nothing to do with the case. I quit and I have stayed quit—and +I have quit forever. So all that is coming to me in the premises is +based on my own determination, as all has been that has come, and I have +no complaints to make; and if I made any I should expect to get a punch +in the eye for making them—and deserve one.</p> + +<p>Passing over the physical and mental sides of the fight—which, I may +assure you, were annoying enough to suit the most exacting advocate of +the old policy of mortifying the flesh and disciplining the mind—there +came eventually the necessity of learning how to keep in the game on a +water basis—or, rather, of learning how to keep in such portions of the +game as seemed worth while on a soft-drink schedule. I was too old to +form many new ties. I had accumulated a farflung line of drinking men as +friends. They were mostly the men with whom association was a +pleasure—as in politics the villains are always the good fellows—and I +did not want to lose them, however willing they were to lose me.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p><p>There came, however, with my mineral-water view, a discriminatory sense +that was not enjoyed in the highball period—that is to say, I found, +observed with the cold and mayhap critical eye of abstinence, that a +number of those with whom I was wont to associate needed the softening +glow radiated by the liquor in me to make them as good as I had +previously thought they were. There were some I found I did not miss, +and more came to the same conclusion about me. They were all +right—fine!—when seen or heard through ears and eyes that had been +affected by the genial charitableness of a couple or three cocktails; +but when seen or heard with no adventitious appliances on my part save +ginger ale they were rather depressing—and I am quite sure they held +the same views about me.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="V_A_Thirsty_Nations_Need" id="V_A_Thirsty_Nations_Need"></a><i>V: A Thirsty Nation's Need</i></h2> + +<p>So I sloughed off a good many and a good many sloughed off me; and a +working basis was secured. At first I tried to keep along with all the +old crowd, but that was impossible in two ways. I never realized until +after I was on the water-wagon what extremes in piffle I used to think +was witty conversation, and they discovered speedily that my +non-alcoholic communications fitted in neither with the spirit nor the +spirits of the occasion.</p> + +<p>The crying need of the society of this country is a non-alcoholic +beverage that can be drunk in quantities similar to the quantities in +which highballs can be drunk. A man who is a good, handy drinker can lap +up half a dozen highballs in the course of an evening—and many lap up +considerably more than that number and hold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> them comfortably; but the +man does not exist who can drink half of that bulk of water or ginger +ale, or of any of the first-aids-to-the-non-drinkers, and not be both +flooded and foundered. The human stomach will easily accommodate +numerous seidels of beer, poured in at regular or irregular intervals; +but the human stomach cannot and will not take care of a similar number +of seidels of water, or of any other liquid that comes in the guise of +stuff that neither cheers nor inebriates. I have never looked up the +scientific reason for this. I state it as a fact, proved by my own +attempts to accomplish with water what I used easily to do with +highballs, Pilsner and other naughty substances.</p> + +<p>The reformer boys will tell you there is no special need for such a +drink; that water is all-sufficient. Of course everybody knows the +reformer boys think the world is going to hell in a hanging basket +unless each person in it comports himself and herself as the reformer +boy dictates! But it is not so. And it is so that the social +intercourse, the interchange of ideas <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>between man and man, both in this +country and in every other country, is often predicated on drinking as a concomitant.</p> + +<p>We may bewail this, but we cannot dodge it. Hence any man who has been +used to the normal society of his fellows along the lines by which I +became used to that society, and along the lines by which ninety per +cent of the men in this country become used to that society, must make a +bluff at drinking something now and then. If he is not a partaker of +alcohol he has his troubles in finding a medium for his imbibing, unless +he goes the entire limit and cuts out the society of all friends who +drink, which leaves him in a rather sequestrated and senseless +position—not, of course, that there are not plenty of interesting men +who do not drink, but that so many interesting men do.</p> + +<p>So the problem of a non-drinker resolves itself to this: How can he +continue in the companionship of the men he likes, and who possibly like +him, and not drink? How can he remain a social animal, with the +fellowship of his kind, and stay on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> water-wagon? Well, it is a +difficult problem, especially for persons situated as I was, who had +spent twenty years accumulating a large assortment of acquaintances who +used the stuff in moderation, but with added social zest to their goings and comings.</p> + +<p>When a man first stops drinking he is likely to become censorious. That +starts him badly. Also he is likely to become serious. That marks him +down fifteen points out of a possible thirty. He flocks by himself, +thinking high thoughts about his purity of purpose, his vast wisdom, his +acute realization of the dangers that formerly beset his path and now +beset the path of all those who are not walking side by side and in +close communion with him. He pins medals all over himself, pats himself +on the chest, and is much better than his kind.</p> + +<p>Then he wakes up—unless he is a chump and a Pharisee. If he is one or +both of those he never wakes up, but soon passes beyond the pale. When +he wakes up—assuming he has intelligence enough to do that—he gets an +acute realization that if he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> holds off in that manner much longer even +the elevator boys will not speak to him; and he comes to a point where +he finds out that the wisest of the wise saws is that a man who is in +Rome should do as the Romans do, with such modifications as his personal +circumstances may demand. Personally I found the most advantageous +course to pursue was to drop the highfalutin air of extreme virtue that +oppressed me and depressed my friends for the first few months and +consider the whole thing as a joke.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VI_The_Jeers_of_the_Smart_Alecs" id="VI_The_Jeers_of_the_Smart_Alecs"></a><i>VI: The Jeers of the Smart Alecs</i></h2> + +<p>I refused to take it seriously. It was in reality the most serious thing +in the world; but that was inside. Outside it was a thing to josh, to +laugh over, to stand chaffing about—I listened to interminable +comments, all couched in the same form—but, nevertheless, a thing to be +held to grimly and firmly. So I went along whenever I had a chance. +After the ghosts ceased haunting and the desire had gone I found I could +cheer up on skillfully absorbed mineral water. I am free to say that a +good deal of the conversation I heard bored me a heap; but I did not let +on. And the result has been that I am no longer forced to flock by +myself, but can break into almost any company of good fellows and be as +good a fellow as any of them, via the ginger-ale or mineral-water +process of conviviality.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p><p>All the asses are not solidungulate quadrupeds—a good many of them +belong to the genus homo. These are found in every center of population +and are the boys who never cease wondering how it is that any man can or +does do anything they themselves do not do, and continually comment +thereon. Ordinarily when a man of my type quits drinking the fact is +accepted after the probationary period has passed, and no further +comment is made on it. Not so with the asinine contingent. They have the +same patter to prattle unceasingly about it. They have the same comment, +the same bromides to get off, the same sneers to sneer and the same +jeers to jeer. If there was no other reason—and there are a +hundred—why I shall not do any more drinking, I shall never taste +another drop just to show these fools what fools they are when they run +up against a real determination.</p> + +<p>It took time to get into this water-cheerful stage—a good deal of time, +a good deal of determination, a good deal of maneuvering; and it meant +the overlooking of many things that did not appeal to me, as well as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +considerable charity on the part of the folks with whom I desired to +remain friendly—more on their part than on mine, I am sure.</p> + +<p>However, it has worked out reasonably well; and as I have tried it in +New York, in Washington, in San Francisco and Boston, and in most cities +between, in London and Paris and Berlin, and in other portions of the +globe where I formerly performed under the other schedule, I think I am +safe in saying that it can be done if one sets his mind to it—that is, +a non-drinker need not necessarily be a hermit. Of course he can find +plenty of non-drinkers with whom to associate if he makes the search; +but, and it saddens me to say it, many of the non-drinking classes are +not so interesting as they might be.</p> + +<p>However, that is only one phase of it—an important phase, but not the +only one. Doubtless it will seem erroneous to many persons, who have not +been accustomed to the sort of relaxation that full-lived men take, to +say this is important; and I freely admit that the highbrow basis is +somewhat different from the highball basis.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p><p>I grant that seekers after conversation about dull and academic +subjects may not find that conversation at a social gathering sought for +relaxation after the day's work is over; but not all conversation of the +kind most red-blooded and live men who do things crave consists of +joining in barber-shop chords of: "How dry I am! How dry I am! Nobudee knows how dry I am!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VII_More_Time_for_Other_Things" id="VII_More_Time_for_Other_Things"></a><i>VII: More Time for Other Things</i></h2> + +<p>And there is this great advantage: Your resources for the entertainment +of yourself are vastly developed when you do not drink. When you do +drink, about all you do is drink—that is, the usual formula, day by +day, is to get through work and then go somewhere where there are +fellows of your kind and have a few. Now when you do not drink you find +there are other things that occur to you as worth while. It is not +necessary to hurry to the club or elsewhere to meet the crowd and listen +to the newest story, or hear the comment on the day's doings, punctuated +by the regular tapping of the bell for the waiter and the pleasing: +"What'll it be, boys?" You do that now and then, but you do not do it every day.</p> + +<p>After mature consideration of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>subject I have concluded that the +greatest, the most satisfactory, the finest attribute of a non-alcoholic +life is the time it gives you to do non-alcoholic things. Time! That is +the largest benefit—time to read, to think, to get out-of-doors, to see +pictures, to go to plays, to meet and mingle with new people, to do your +own work in. A man who has the convivial-drinking habit is put to it on +occasions to find time for anything but conviviality aside from his +regular occupation. It seems imperative to him that he shall get where +the crowd is, and stay there. He might miss something—a drink maybe, or +two, or a laugh, or a yarn, or the pleasures of association with folks +he likes. These are important when visualized alcoholically. They make +up the most of that kind of a life.</p> + +<p>Do not understand that I am deprecating these pleasures. I am not. I +have already explained how strenuously I worked out a program that +enables me to enjoy them now and then; but the fact that I have quit +drinking makes them incidental to the general scheme instead of the +whole scheme.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> It gives me an opportunity to pick and choose a bit. It +relieves me of the necessity of being at the same places at the same +time every afternoon or evening. Whereas I used to be the boss and John +Barleycorn the foreman, I have now discharged John and am both boss and +foreman; and I run the game to suit myself and have time for other things.</p> + +<p>Let me impress that on you—the glory and gladness of time! It requires +rather persistent application to be a good fellow. One cannot do much +else. However, when a man has arrived at that stage where he can retain +at least a portion of his good fellowship and also can be two or three +of the other kinds of a worth-while fellow—to himself, at least—he has +gained on the old gang by about a hundred per cent.</p> + +<p>As it is now, no chums come shouting in to urge me to go and have one; +nobody drops round at five o'clock in the afternoon to hurry me along to +the favorite table at the club; nobody suggests about seven o'clock that +we all 'phone home and stay down and have dinner together; the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> plan +of having a luncheon that lasts an hour and a half or two hours in the +best part of the day is rarely broached. There are few telephone calls +after dinner urging an immediate descent on a gathering where there is +something coming off—all these things are left to my choice and are not +taken as a matter of usual procedure, predicated on the circumstances of +the plan of living.</p> + +<p>A non-drinking man is the master of his own time. If he wants +sociability he can go and get it, up to such limits as he personally can +attain for himself in his water-consuming capacity. A drinking man is +not master of his time. He may think he is, but he is not. He is the +creature of a habit that may be harmless, but which surely is insistent; +and the habit dictates what he shall do with his leisure.</p> + +<p>Time! Why, such new vistas of what can be done with time that was wasted +in former years have opened before me that time seems to me the greatest +luxury in the world—time that was formerly wasted and now is used! I +hope that does not sound <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>priggish. I have tried to show that I value +highly the privilege of associating with my fellows, and that I like +their ways and their talk and their company. What I mean by this pæan to +time is that I can have company in a modified measure, if I choose; and +that I can and do have other things that no man who has a daily drinking +habit can or does have.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VIII_Leisure_Put_to_Good_Uses" id="VIII_Leisure_Put_to_Good_Uses"></a><i>VIII: Leisure Put to Good Uses</i></h2> + +<p>Take books—though books may not be a fair test of time employed in my +case, for I always have read books in great numbers—but take books: In +the past three years and a half I have read as many books—real +books—as I read in the ten years preceding. I have read books I was +always intending to read, but never got round to. I have kept up with +the new good ones and have helped myself to several items of interesting +discovery and knowledge that in the old days would have been known about +only through newspaper reports. I have developed a good many half-facts +that were in my mind. I have classified and arranged a lot of scattering +information that had seeped into me notwithstanding my engagements with the boys.</p> + +<p>I have had time to go to see some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>pictures. I have had time to hear +some music. I have had time to visit a lot of interesting places, such +as great industrial concerns and factories, which I always intended to +see but never quite reached. I have had time to make a few +investigations on my own account. I have met and talked to a large +number of people who were formerly outside my range of vision. And I +have done better work in my own line—I have more time for it.</p> + +<p>If I have lost any friends they were friends whose loss does not bother +me. I find that all the true-blue chaps, the worth-while ones, though +they look—in most instances—on my non-drinking idiosyncrasy with +amused tolerance, have not lost any respect or affection for me, and are +just as true blue as they formerly were. Most of them drink, but I fancy +some of them wish they did not; and none of them holds my strange +behavior up against me.</p> + +<p>To be sure, they often have their little gatherings without me; but that +is not because they do not like me any the less, and is because I do not +happen, in my new rôle,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> to fit in. There are times, you know, when even +the most enthusiastic ginger-ale specialist is not <i>persona grata</i>. We +have reached a common basis of understanding. The real man is tolerant. +Intolerance is the vice of the narrow man.</p> + +<p>Now, then, we come to the real question, which is: With our society +organized as it is, with men such men as they are, with conditions that +surround life as it is organized, with things as they stand to-day—is +it worth while to drink moderately, or is it not? The answer, based +solely on my own experience, is that it is not. Looking at the matter +from all its angles I am convinced that the best thing I ever did for +myself was to quit drinking. I will go further than that and say it is +my unalterable conviction that alcohol, in any form, as a beverage never +did anything for any man that he would not have been better without.</p> + +<p>I can now sit back and contrast the old game with the new. The +comparisons fall under two general heads—physical and mental. The +physical gain is so obvious that even those who have not experienced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> it +admit it, and those who have experienced it comment on it as some +miracle of health that has been attained. Any man—I do not care who he +is—who was the sort of a drinker I was, who will stop drinking long +enough to get cooled out will feel so much better in every way that he +will be hard put to it to give a reason for ever beginning again.</p> + +<p>Take my own case: I was fat, wheezy, uric-acidy, gouty, rheumatic—not +organically bad, but symptomatically inferior. I was never quite +normal—no man is normal who has a few drinks each day, though most men +boast they never were under the influence of liquor in their lives, and +all that sort of tommyrot—and never quite up to the mark.</p> + +<p>Now I weigh one hundred eighty-five pounds, which is my normal weight, +for that is what I weighed when I was twenty-one; and I have not varied +five pounds in more than two years. I used to weigh two hundred and +fifty, which was the result of our friend Pilsner beer and his +accomplices. All the gouty, rheumatic, wheezy symptoms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> are gone. If +there is anything the matter with me the best doctors in these United +States cannot discover what it is. My eye is clear, instead of somewhat +bleary. I have dropped off every physical burden and infirmity I had, +and I am in the pink of condition. I have no fear of heart, kidneys, or +of any other organ. I have no pains, no aches, and no head in the +morning. I sleep as a well man should sleep and I eat as a well man +should eat. I am forty-five years old and I feel as if I were +twenty—and I am, to all intents and purposes, physically.</p> + +<p>So much for that side of it. Mentally I have a clearer, saner, wider +view of life. I am afflicted by none of the desultoriness superinduced +by alcohol. I do not need a bracer to get me going or a hooker to keep +me under way. I find, now that I know the other side of it, that the +chief mental effect of alcohol, taken as I took it, is to induce a +certain scattering and casualness of mind. Also, it induces a lack of +definiteness of view and a notable failure of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>intensive effort. A man +evades and scatters and exaggerates and makes loose statements when he drinks.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="IX_Alcohol_and_the_Toll_it_Takes" id="IX_Alcohol_and_the_Toll_it_Takes"></a><i>IX: Alcohol and the Toll it Takes</i></h2> + +<p>And let me say another thing: One of the reasons I quit was because I +noticed I was going to funerals oftener than usual—funerals of friends +who had been living the same sort of lives for theirs as I had been +living for mine. They began dropping off with Bright's disease and other +affections superinduced by alcohol; and I took stock of that feature of +it rather earnestly. The funerals have not stopped. They have been more +frequent in the past three years than in the three years preceding—all +good fellows, happy, convivial souls; but now dead. Some of them thought +that I was foolish to quit too!</p> + +<p>And there are a few cases of hardening arteries I know about, and a +considerable amount of gout and rheumatism, and some other ills, among +the gay boys who japed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> at me for quitting. Gruesome, is it not? And God +forbid that I should cast up! But if you quit it in time there will be +no production of albumin and sugar, no high blood pressure, no swollen +big toes and stiffened joints.</p> + +<p>If health is a desideratum, one way to attain a lot of it is to cut out +the booze. The old game makes for fun, but it takes toll—and never fails!</p> + +<p>I have tried it both ways. I can see how a man who never took any liquor +cannot understand much of what I have written, and I can see how a man +who has the same sort of habits I had can think me absurd in my +conclusions; but a man who has played both ends of it certainly has some +qualifications as a judge. And, as I stated, I have set down here only +my own personal ideas on the subject.</p> + +<p>As I look at it there is no argument. The man who does not drink has all +the better of the game.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Game, by Samuel G. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Old Game + A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon + +Author: Samuel G. Blythe + +Release Date: July 2, 2009 [EBook #29292] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD GAME *** + + + + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +_The Old Game_ + +_A Retrospect After Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon_ + +_By Samuel G. Blythe_ + + +_Author of "The Price of Place," "Cutting It Out," etc. etc._ + + +_New York +George H. Doran Company_ + + +COPYRIGHT, 1914 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + +_The Old Game_ + + +_CONTENTS_ + + PAGE + I. INTRODUCTORY 9 + + II. A BACKWARD GLANCE FROM A HILLOCK OF ABSTINENCE 15 + + III. GETTING THE ALCOHOL OUT OF ONE'S SYSTEM 21 + + IV. THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED IN VAIN 29 + + V. A THIRSTY NATION'S NEED 37 + + VI. THE JEERS OF THE SMART ALECS 45 + + VII. MORE TIME FOR OTHER THINGS 51 + +VIII. LEISURE PUT TO GOOD USES 59 + + IX. ALCOHOL AND THE TOLL IT TAKES 67 + + + + +_I: Introductory_ + + +In a few minutes it will be three years and a half since I have taken a +drink. In six years, six months, and a few minutes it will be ten years. +Then I shall begin to feel I have some standing among the chaps who have +quit. Three years and a half seems quite a period of abstinence to me, +but I am constantly running across men who have been on the wagon for +five and ten and twelve and twenty years; and I know, when it comes to +merely not taking any, I am a piker as yet. However, I have +well-grounded hopes. The fact is, a drink could not be put into me +except with the aid of an anesthetic and a funnel; but, for all that, I +am no bigot. + +I look at this non-drinking determination of mine as a purely individual +proposition. Let me get the stage set properly at the beginning of my +remarks. I have no advice to offer and no counsel to give. Most of my +best friends drink and I never have said and never shall say them nay. +It is up to them--not up to me. I have no prejudices in the matter. If +my friends want to drink I am for that--for them. + +These things are mentioned to establish my status in the premises. I +have no sermon to preach--no warning to convey. I have no desire to +impress my convictions on the subject of drinking liquor on any person +whatever. That is not my mission. So far as I am concerned, all persons +are hereby given full and free permission to eat, drink and be merry to +such extent as they may prescribe for themselves. I set no limit, +suggest no reforms, urge no cutting down or cutting out. Go to it--and +peace be with you! And for an absolute teetotaler I reckon I buy as many +drinks for others as any one in my class. + +Pardon me for inserting these puny details in what I have to say. +Triflingly personal as they are they seem necessary in order to +establish my viewpoint. So far as drinking is concerned I look at it +with a mind that is open and tolerant--except in one instance. That one +instance concerns myself personally and individually. My mind is closed +and intolerant in my own case. I have quit--and quit forever; but that +does not make me go round urging others to quit, or preaching at them, +or trying to reform them. They can reform or not, as they dad-blamed +please. To be sure I have my own interior ideas on what some of them +should do; but I never have and never shall do anything with those ideas +but keep them closely to myself. + +Therefore, to resume: In a few minutes it will be three years and a half +since I have taken a drink. There is no more alcohol in my system than +there is in a glass of spring water. The thought of putting alcohol into +my system is as absent from my mind as is the thought of putting benzine +into it, or gasoline, or taking a swig of shoe-polish. It never occurs +to me. The whole thing is out of my psychology. My palate has forgotten +how it tastes. My stomach has forgotten how it feels. My head has +forgotten how it exhilarates. The next-morning fur has forsaken my +tongue. It is all over! + + + + +_II: A Backward Glance from a Hillock of Abstinence_ + + +Looking back at the old game from this hillock of abstinence--it is not +an eminence like those occupied by the twelve and fifteen year +boys--looking back at the old game from this slight elevation, it is +perhaps excusable for a man who put in twenty years at the old game to +set the old game off against the new game and make up a debit and credit +account just for the fun of it. + +Just for the fun of it! My kind of drinking was always for the fun of +it--for the fun that came with it and out of it and was in it--and for +no other reason. I was no sot and no souse. All the drinks I took were +for convivial purposes solely, except on occasional mornings when a too +convivial evening demanded a next morning conniver in the way of a +cocktail or a frappe, or a brandy-and-soda, for purposes of +encouragement and to help get the sand out of the wheels. + +Wherefore, what have I personally gained by quitting and what have I +personally lost? How does the account stand? Is it worth while or not? +Is there anything in convivial drinking that is too precious and too +pleasant to be sacrificed for whatever pleasures or rewards there are in +abstinence? What are the big equations? These are questions that +naturally occur in a consideration of the subject; and these are the +questions I shall try to answer, answering them entirely from my own +experience and judging them from my own viewpoint, leaving the +application of my conclusions to those who care to apply them to their +own individual cases. + +It takes two years for a man who has been a convivial drinker to get any +sort of proper perspective on both sides of the proposition. Three years +is better, and five years, I should say, about right. Still, after +three years and a half I think I can draw some conclusions that may have +a certain general application--though, as I have said, I make no +pretense of applying them generally. So far as I am able to judge, a man +who has been a more or less sincere drinker for twenty years does not +arrive at a point before two years of abstinence where he can take an +impartial and non-alcoholic survey. + +At first he is imbued with the spirit of the new convert, fired with +zeal and considerable of a Pharisee. Also, he is inhabited by the +lingering thoughts of what he has renounced--the fun and the frolic of +it; and he has set himself aside, in a good measure, from the friends he +has made in the twenty years of joyousness. + + + + +_III: Getting the Alcohol Out of One's System_ + + +A scientist who has made a study of the subject told me, early in my +water-wagoning, that it takes eighteen months for a man to get the +alcohol entirely out of his system--provided, of course, he has been a +reasonably consistent consumer of it for a period of years. I think that +is correct. Of course he did not mean--nor do I--that the alcohol +actually remains in one's system, but that the sub-acute effects +remain--that the system is not entirely reorganized on the new basis +before that time; that the renovation is not complete. + +I do not know exactly how to phrase it; but, as nearly as I can express +it, the condition amounts to this: After a man has been a reasonably +steady drinker for a period of years, and quits drinking, there remain +within him mental and some physical alcoholic tendencies. These are +acute for the earlier stages, and gradually come to be almost +subconscious--that is, though there is no physical alcoholization of his +body, the mental alcoholization has not departed. I do not mean that his +mind or mental powers are in any way affected to their detriment. What I +do mean is that there remains in every man a remembrance, the ghost of a +desire, the haunting thoughts of how good a certain kind of a drink +would taste, and a regret for joys of companionship with one's fellows +in the old way and in the old game, which takes time--and a good deal of +time--to eradicate. + +It becomes a sort of state of mind. The body does not crave liquor. All +that is past. There is no actual desire for it. Indeed, the thought of +again taking a drink may be physically repugnant; but there is a sort of +phantom of renounced good times that hangs round and worries and +obtrudes in blue hours and lonesome hours and letdown hours--a +persistent, insistent sort of ghost-thought that flits across the mind +from time to time and stimulates the what's-the-use portion of a man's +thinking apparatus into active, personal inquiry, based on the _dum +vivimus_, _vivamus_ proposition. + +I know this will be disputed by many men who have quit drinking and who +beat themselves on the chests and boast: "I never think of it! Never, I +assure you! I quit; and after a few days the thought of drinking never +entered my mind." I have only one reply for these persons; and, phrasing +it as politely as I can, I say to them that they are all liars. +Moreover, they are the worst sort of liars, for they not only lie to +others but commit the useless folly of lying to themselves. They may +think they do not lie; but they do. + +There is not one of them--not one--who is not visited by the ghost of +good times, the wraith of former fun, now and then; or one who does not +wonder whether it is worth the struggle and speculate on what the harm +would be if he took a few for old time's sake. The mental yearn comes +back occasionally long after the physical yearn has vanished. My +compliments to you strong-minded and iron-willed citizens who quit and +forget--but you don't! You may quit, but it is months and months before +you forget. + +The ghost appears and reappears; but gradually, as time goes on, the +visits are less frequent--and finally they cease. The ghost has given +you up for a bad job. If any man has quit and has stuck it out for two +years he can be reasonably sure he will not be haunted much after he +enters his third year. + +Mental impressions and desires last far longer than physical ones, and +by that time the mind has been reorganized along the new lines. Then +comes the sure knowledge that it is all right; and after that time any +man who has fought his fight and falls can be classed only as an idiot. +What, in the name of Bacchus, is there to compensate a man in drinking +again--after he has won his fight--for all the troubles and rigors of +the battle from which he has emerged victorious? If he had nerve enough +to go through his novitiate and get his degree, why should he +deliberately return to the position he voluntarily abandoned? What has +he been fighting for? Why did he begin? + + + + +_IV: Those Who Have Suffered in Vain_ + + +Owing to a worldwide acquaintance among men who drink my personal +determination to quit still excites the patronizing inquiry, "Still on +the wagon?" when I meet old friends. That used to make me angry, but it +does not any more. I say, "Yes!" take my mineral water and pass on to +other things. But the position of those who quit and go back to it, and +seek to excuse the return by saying, "Oh, I only stopped to see whether +I could. I found it was easy; so I began again!"--now is that not the +sublimation of piffle? The fact that any man who salves himself with +this sort of statement--and hundreds do--did go back does not prove that +he could quit, but that he could not! + +I can understand why a man, having tried both sides of the game, should +conclude that the rigors and restraints of not drinking overbalance the +compensations and take up the practice again; but I cannot understand +why a man should be so great a hypocrite with himself as to assign a +reason like that for his renewal of the habit. No man quits just to see +whether he can quit. Every man quits because he personally thinks he +ought to quit--for whatever his personal reason may be. And he begins +again because he concludes the game is not worth playing, which means +that he is not able to play it--not that it lacks merit. + +When you come to sum it all up general reasons for drinking are as +absurd as general reasons for not drinking. It is entirely an individual +proposition. I concluded it was a bad thing for me to drink. I know now +I was right. But--and here is the point--it may be a good thing for my +neighbor to drink. He must judge of that himself. Personally I cannot +see that it is a good thing for any man to drink; but I am no judge. I +am influenced in my conclusions, not by a broad view of the situation as +it applies to my fellows but by an intensely narrow view as it applies +to myself. Hence what I have concluded in the matter may be +uncharitable--may smack of Puritanism and may not be supported by +general facts; but I am writing about my own experiences, not those of +any other person whatever. + +My occupation takes me to all parts of the world and has for twenty-five +years. It has caused me to make friends with all sorts of people in all +sorts of places and in all sorts of circumstances. I early discovered +that, as I was a gregarious person and intent on doing the best for +myself that I possibly could, it was necessary for me to cultivate the +friendship of men of affairs; and it became apparent to me that many men +of affairs take an occasional drink. Naturally I took an occasional +drink with them, having no prejudices in the matter and being of open +mind. I am big and husky, and mix well; and the result was I acquired as +extensive a line of convivial acquaintances, across this country and +across Europe, as any person of your acquaintance. To some extent my +friendship with these men was predicated on having a few drinks with +them. I fell in with their ways or they fell in with mine; and as my +association in almost every city, among the men with whom I worked and +the men I met, is based largely on entertainment of one kind or +another--generally with some alcohol in it--my life was ordered that way +for two decades. And I had a heap of fun. There was no sottishness about +it, no solitary drinking, no drinking for drink's sake, no drunkenness. +It was all jollity and really innocent enough--a case of good fellows +having a good time together. + +However, there was a good deal of rum consumed one way and another. Then +three and a half years ago, after a long caucus with myself, I quit. I +decided I had played that game long enough and would begin to play +another. It may be I did not know or figure out as concretely as I have +figured out since just what I was doing when I quit. It may be! Still, +that has nothing to do with the case. I quit and I have stayed quit--and +I have quit forever. So all that is coming to me in the premises is +based on my own determination, as all has been that has come, and I have +no complaints to make; and if I made any I should expect to get a punch +in the eye for making them--and deserve one. + +Passing over the physical and mental sides of the fight--which, I may +assure you, were annoying enough to suit the most exacting advocate of +the old policy of mortifying the flesh and disciplining the mind--there +came eventually the necessity of learning how to keep in the game on a +water basis--or, rather, of learning how to keep in such portions of the +game as seemed worth while on a soft-drink schedule. I was too old to +form many new ties. I had accumulated a farflung line of drinking men as +friends. They were mostly the men with whom association was a +pleasure--as in politics the villains are always the good fellows--and I +did not want to lose them, however willing they were to lose me. + +There came, however, with my mineral-water view, a discriminatory sense +that was not enjoyed in the highball period--that is to say, I found, +observed with the cold and mayhap critical eye of abstinence, that a +number of those with whom I was wont to associate needed the softening +glow radiated by the liquor in me to make them as good as I had +previously thought they were. There were some I found I did not miss, +and more came to the same conclusion about me. They were all +right--fine!--when seen or heard through ears and eyes that had been +affected by the genial charitableness of a couple or three cocktails; +but when seen or heard with no adventitious appliances on my part save +ginger ale they were rather depressing--and I am quite sure they held +the same views about me. + + + + +_V: A Thirsty Nation's Need_ + + +So I sloughed off a good many and a good many sloughed off me; and a +working basis was secured. At first I tried to keep along with all the +old crowd, but that was impossible in two ways. I never realized until +after I was on the water-wagon what extremes in piffle I used to think +was witty conversation, and they discovered speedily that my +non-alcoholic communications fitted in neither with the spirit nor the +spirits of the occasion. + +The crying need of the society of this country is a non-alcoholic +beverage that can be drunk in quantities similar to the quantities in +which highballs can be drunk. A man who is a good, handy drinker can lap +up half a dozen highballs in the course of an evening--and many lap up +considerably more than that number and hold them comfortably; but the +man does not exist who can drink half of that bulk of water or ginger +ale, or of any of the first-aids-to-the-non-drinkers, and not be both +flooded and foundered. The human stomach will easily accommodate +numerous seidels of beer, poured in at regular or irregular intervals; +but the human stomach cannot and will not take care of a similar number +of seidels of water, or of any other liquid that comes in the guise of +stuff that neither cheers nor inebriates. I have never looked up the +scientific reason for this. I state it as a fact, proved by my own +attempts to accomplish with water what I used easily to do with +highballs, Pilsner and other naughty substances. + +The reformer boys will tell you there is no special need for such a +drink; that water is all-sufficient. Of course everybody knows the +reformer boys think the world is going to hell in a hanging basket +unless each person in it comports himself and herself as the reformer +boy dictates! But it is not so. And it is so that the social +intercourse, the interchange of ideas between man and man, both in this +country and in every other country, is often predicated on drinking as a +concomitant. + +We may bewail this, but we cannot dodge it. Hence any man who has been +used to the normal society of his fellows along the lines by which I +became used to that society, and along the lines by which ninety per +cent of the men in this country become used to that society, must make a +bluff at drinking something now and then. If he is not a partaker of +alcohol he has his troubles in finding a medium for his imbibing, unless +he goes the entire limit and cuts out the society of all friends who +drink, which leaves him in a rather sequestrated and senseless +position--not, of course, that there are not plenty of interesting men +who do not drink, but that so many interesting men do. + +So the problem of a non-drinker resolves itself to this: How can he +continue in the companionship of the men he likes, and who possibly like +him, and not drink? How can he remain a social animal, with the +fellowship of his kind, and stay on the water-wagon? Well, it is a +difficult problem, especially for persons situated as I was, who had +spent twenty years accumulating a large assortment of acquaintances who +used the stuff in moderation, but with added social zest to their goings +and comings. + +When a man first stops drinking he is likely to become censorious. That +starts him badly. Also he is likely to become serious. That marks him +down fifteen points out of a possible thirty. He flocks by himself, +thinking high thoughts about his purity of purpose, his vast wisdom, his +acute realization of the dangers that formerly beset his path and now +beset the path of all those who are not walking side by side and in +close communion with him. He pins medals all over himself, pats himself +on the chest, and is much better than his kind. + +Then he wakes up--unless he is a chump and a Pharisee. If he is one or +both of those he never wakes up, but soon passes beyond the pale. When +he wakes up--assuming he has intelligence enough to do that--he gets an +acute realization that if he holds off in that manner much longer even +the elevator boys will not speak to him; and he comes to a point where +he finds out that the wisest of the wise saws is that a man who is in +Rome should do as the Romans do, with such modifications as his personal +circumstances may demand. Personally I found the most advantageous +course to pursue was to drop the highfalutin air of extreme virtue that +oppressed me and depressed my friends for the first few months and +consider the whole thing as a joke. + + + + +_VI: The Jeers of the Smart Alecs_ + + +I refused to take it seriously. It was in reality the most serious thing +in the world; but that was inside. Outside it was a thing to josh, to +laugh over, to stand chaffing about--I listened to interminable +comments, all couched in the same form--but, nevertheless, a thing to be +held to grimly and firmly. So I went along whenever I had a chance. +After the ghosts ceased haunting and the desire had gone I found I could +cheer up on skillfully absorbed mineral water. I am free to say that a +good deal of the conversation I heard bored me a heap; but I did not let +on. And the result has been that I am no longer forced to flock by +myself, but can break into almost any company of good fellows and be as +good a fellow as any of them, via the ginger-ale or mineral-water +process of conviviality. + +All the asses are not solidungulate quadrupeds--a good many of them +belong to the genus homo. These are found in every center of population +and are the boys who never cease wondering how it is that any man can or +does do anything they themselves do not do, and continually comment +thereon. Ordinarily when a man of my type quits drinking the fact is +accepted after the probationary period has passed, and no further +comment is made on it. Not so with the asinine contingent. They have the +same patter to prattle unceasingly about it. They have the same comment, +the same bromides to get off, the same sneers to sneer and the same +jeers to jeer. If there was no other reason--and there are a +hundred--why I shall not do any more drinking, I shall never taste +another drop just to show these fools what fools they are when they run +up against a real determination. + +It took time to get into this water-cheerful stage--a good deal of time, +a good deal of determination, a good deal of maneuvering; and it meant +the overlooking of many things that did not appeal to me, as well as +considerable charity on the part of the folks with whom I desired to +remain friendly--more on their part than on mine, I am sure. + +However, it has worked out reasonably well; and as I have tried it in +New York, in Washington, in San Francisco and Boston, and in most cities +between, in London and Paris and Berlin, and in other portions of the +globe where I formerly performed under the other schedule, I think I am +safe in saying that it can be done if one sets his mind to it--that is, +a non-drinker need not necessarily be a hermit. Of course he can find +plenty of non-drinkers with whom to associate if he makes the search; +but, and it saddens me to say it, many of the non-drinking classes are +not so interesting as they might be. + +However, that is only one phase of it--an important phase, but not the +only one. Doubtless it will seem erroneous to many persons, who have not +been accustomed to the sort of relaxation that full-lived men take, to +say this is important; and I freely admit that the highbrow basis is +somewhat different from the highball basis. + +I grant that seekers after conversation about dull and academic +subjects may not find that conversation at a social gathering sought for +relaxation after the day's work is over; but not all conversation of the +kind most red-blooded and live men who do things crave consists of +joining in barber-shop chords of: "How dry I am! How dry I am! Nobudee +knows how dry I am!" + + + + +_VII: More Time for Other Things_ + + +And there is this great advantage: Your resources for the entertainment +of yourself are vastly developed when you do not drink. When you do +drink, about all you do is drink--that is, the usual formula, day by +day, is to get through work and then go somewhere where there are +fellows of your kind and have a few. Now when you do not drink you find +there are other things that occur to you as worth while. It is not +necessary to hurry to the club or elsewhere to meet the crowd and listen +to the newest story, or hear the comment on the day's doings, punctuated +by the regular tapping of the bell for the waiter and the pleasing: +"What'll it be, boys?" You do that now and then, but you do not do it +every day. + +After mature consideration of the subject I have concluded that the +greatest, the most satisfactory, the finest attribute of a non-alcoholic +life is the time it gives you to do non-alcoholic things. Time! That is +the largest benefit--time to read, to think, to get out-of-doors, to see +pictures, to go to plays, to meet and mingle with new people, to do your +own work in. A man who has the convivial-drinking habit is put to it on +occasions to find time for anything but conviviality aside from his +regular occupation. It seems imperative to him that he shall get where +the crowd is, and stay there. He might miss something--a drink maybe, or +two, or a laugh, or a yarn, or the pleasures of association with folks +he likes. These are important when visualized alcoholically. They make +up the most of that kind of a life. + +Do not understand that I am deprecating these pleasures. I am not. I +have already explained how strenuously I worked out a program that +enables me to enjoy them now and then; but the fact that I have quit +drinking makes them incidental to the general scheme instead of the +whole scheme. It gives me an opportunity to pick and choose a bit. It +relieves me of the necessity of being at the same places at the same +time every afternoon or evening. Whereas I used to be the boss and John +Barleycorn the foreman, I have now discharged John and am both boss and +foreman; and I run the game to suit myself and have time for other +things. + +Let me impress that on you--the glory and gladness of time! It requires +rather persistent application to be a good fellow. One cannot do much +else. However, when a man has arrived at that stage where he can retain +at least a portion of his good fellowship and also can be two or three +of the other kinds of a worth-while fellow--to himself, at least--he has +gained on the old gang by about a hundred per cent. + +As it is now, no chums come shouting in to urge me to go and have one; +nobody drops round at five o'clock in the afternoon to hurry me along to +the favorite table at the club; nobody suggests about seven o'clock that +we all 'phone home and stay down and have dinner together; the old plan +of having a luncheon that lasts an hour and a half or two hours in the +best part of the day is rarely broached. There are few telephone calls +after dinner urging an immediate descent on a gathering where there is +something coming off--all these things are left to my choice and are not +taken as a matter of usual procedure, predicated on the circumstances of +the plan of living. + +A non-drinking man is the master of his own time. If he wants +sociability he can go and get it, up to such limits as he personally can +attain for himself in his water-consuming capacity. A drinking man is +not master of his time. He may think he is, but he is not. He is the +creature of a habit that may be harmless, but which surely is insistent; +and the habit dictates what he shall do with his leisure. + +Time! Why, such new vistas of what can be done with time that was wasted +in former years have opened before me that time seems to me the greatest +luxury in the world--time that was formerly wasted and now is used! I +hope that does not sound priggish. I have tried to show that I value +highly the privilege of associating with my fellows, and that I like +their ways and their talk and their company. What I mean by this paean to +time is that I can have company in a modified measure, if I choose; and +that I can and do have other things that no man who has a daily drinking +habit can or does have. + + + + +_VIII: Leisure Put to Good Uses_ + + +Take books--though books may not be a fair test of time employed in my +case, for I always have read books in great numbers--but take books: In +the past three years and a half I have read as many books--real +books--as I read in the ten years preceding. I have read books I was +always intending to read, but never got round to. I have kept up with +the new good ones and have helped myself to several items of interesting +discovery and knowledge that in the old days would have been known about +only through newspaper reports. I have developed a good many half-facts +that were in my mind. I have classified and arranged a lot of scattering +information that had seeped into me notwithstanding my engagements with +the boys. + +I have had time to go to see some pictures. I have had time to hear +some music. I have had time to visit a lot of interesting places, such +as great industrial concerns and factories, which I always intended to +see but never quite reached. I have had time to make a few +investigations on my own account. I have met and talked to a large +number of people who were formerly outside my range of vision. And I +have done better work in my own line--I have more time for it. + +If I have lost any friends they were friends whose loss does not bother +me. I find that all the true-blue chaps, the worth-while ones, though +they look--in most instances--on my non-drinking idiosyncrasy with +amused tolerance, have not lost any respect or affection for me, and are +just as true blue as they formerly were. Most of them drink, but I fancy +some of them wish they did not; and none of them holds my strange +behavior up against me. + +To be sure, they often have their little gatherings without me; but that +is not because they do not like me any the less, and is because I do not +happen, in my new role, to fit in. There are times, you know, when even +the most enthusiastic ginger-ale specialist is not _persona grata_. We +have reached a common basis of understanding. The real man is tolerant. +Intolerance is the vice of the narrow man. + +Now, then, we come to the real question, which is: With our society +organized as it is, with men such men as they are, with conditions that +surround life as it is organized, with things as they stand to-day--is +it worth while to drink moderately, or is it not? The answer, based +solely on my own experience, is that it is not. Looking at the matter +from all its angles I am convinced that the best thing I ever did for +myself was to quit drinking. I will go further than that and say it is +my unalterable conviction that alcohol, in any form, as a beverage never +did anything for any man that he would not have been better without. + +I can now sit back and contrast the old game with the new. The +comparisons fall under two general heads--physical and mental. The +physical gain is so obvious that even those who have not experienced it +admit it, and those who have experienced it comment on it as some +miracle of health that has been attained. Any man--I do not care who he +is--who was the sort of a drinker I was, who will stop drinking long +enough to get cooled out will feel so much better in every way that he +will be hard put to it to give a reason for ever beginning again. + +Take my own case: I was fat, wheezy, uric-acidy, gouty, rheumatic--not +organically bad, but symptomatically inferior. I was never quite +normal--no man is normal who has a few drinks each day, though most men +boast they never were under the influence of liquor in their lives, and +all that sort of tommyrot--and never quite up to the mark. + +Now I weigh one hundred eighty-five pounds, which is my normal weight, +for that is what I weighed when I was twenty-one; and I have not varied +five pounds in more than two years. I used to weigh two hundred and +fifty, which was the result of our friend Pilsner beer and his +accomplices. All the gouty, rheumatic, wheezy symptoms are gone. If +there is anything the matter with me the best doctors in these United +States cannot discover what it is. My eye is clear, instead of somewhat +bleary. I have dropped off every physical burden and infirmity I had, +and I am in the pink of condition. I have no fear of heart, kidneys, or +of any other organ. I have no pains, no aches, and no head in the +morning. I sleep as a well man should sleep and I eat as a well man +should eat. I am forty-five years old and I feel as if I were +twenty--and I am, to all intents and purposes, physically. + +So much for that side of it. Mentally I have a clearer, saner, wider +view of life. I am afflicted by none of the desultoriness superinduced +by alcohol. I do not need a bracer to get me going or a hooker to keep +me under way. I find, now that I know the other side of it, that the +chief mental effect of alcohol, taken as I took it, is to induce a +certain scattering and casualness of mind. Also, it induces a lack of +definiteness of view and a notable failure of intensive effort. A man +evades and scatters and exaggerates and makes loose statements when he +drinks. + + + + +_IX: Alcohol and the Toll it Takes_ + + +And let me say another thing: One of the reasons I quit was because I +noticed I was going to funerals oftener than usual--funerals of friends +who had been living the same sort of lives for theirs as I had been +living for mine. They began dropping off with Bright's disease and other +affections superinduced by alcohol; and I took stock of that feature of +it rather earnestly. The funerals have not stopped. They have been more +frequent in the past three years than in the three years preceding--all +good fellows, happy, convivial souls; but now dead. Some of them thought +that I was foolish to quit too! + +And there are a few cases of hardening arteries I know about, and a +considerable amount of gout and rheumatism, and some other ills, among +the gay boys who japed at me for quitting. Gruesome, is it not? And God +forbid that I should cast up! But if you quit it in time there will be +no production of albumin and sugar, no high blood pressure, no swollen +big toes and stiffened joints. + +If health is a desideratum, one way to attain a lot of it is to cut out +the booze. The old game makes for fun, but it takes toll--and never +fails! + +I have tried it both ways. I can see how a man who never took any liquor +cannot understand much of what I have written, and I can see how a man +who has the same sort of habits I had can think me absurd in my +conclusions; but a man who has played both ends of it certainly has some +qualifications as a judge. And, as I stated, I have set down here only +my own personal ideas on the subject. + +As I look at it there is no argument. The man who does not drink has all +the better of the game. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Game, by Samuel G. 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