The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Game, by Samuel G. Blythe

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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

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_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