hball--and quit! I decided the no-liquor end of it
was the better end, and I took that end.

CHAPTER IV

WHEN I QUIT

For purposes of comprehensive record I have divided the various stages
of my waterwagoning into these parts: the obsession stage; the caramel
stage; the pharisaical stage, and the safe-and-sane stage. I drank my
Scotch highball and went over to the club. The crowd was there; I sat
down at a table and when somebody asked me what I'd have I took a glass
of water. Several of my friends looked inquiringly at me and one asked:
"On the wagon?" This attracted the attention of the entire group to my
glass of water. I came in for a good deal of banter, mostly along the
line that it was time I went on the wagon. This was varied with
predictions that I would stay on from an hour to a day or so. I didn't
like that talk, but I bluffed it out--weakly, to be sure. I said I had
decided it wouldn't do me any harm to cool out a bit.

Next day, along about first-drink time, I felt a craving for a
highball. I didn't take it. That evening I went over to the club again.
The crowd was there. I was asked to have a drink. This time I rather
defiantly ordered a glass of water. The same jests were made, but I
drank my water. On the third day I was a bit shaky--sort of nervous. I
didn't feel like work. I couldn't concentrate my mind on anything. I
kept thinking of various kinds of drinks and how good they would taste.
I tried out the club. I may have imagined it, but I thought my old
friends lacked interest in my advent at the table. One of them said:
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, take a drink! You've got a terrible grouch on."
I backed out.

I did have a grouch. I was sore at everybody in the world. Also, I kept
thinking how much I would like to have a drink. That was natural. I had
accustomed my system to digest a certain amount of alcohol every day.
I wasn't supplying that alcohol. My system needed it and howled for it.
I knew a man who had been a drunkard but who had quit and who hadn't
taken a drink for twelve years. I discussed the problem with him. He
told me an eminent specialist had told him it takes eighteen months for
a man who has been a heavy drinker or a steady drinker to get all the
alcohol out of his system. I hadn't been a heavy drinker, but I had
been a steady drinker; and that information gave me a cold chill. I
thought if I were to have this craving for a drink every day for
eighteen months, surely I had