CUTTING IT OUT _In Press_ _By the Same Author_ THE FUN OF GETTING THIN CUTTING IT OUT HOW TO GET ON THE WATERWAGONAND STAY THERE BYSAMUEL G. BLYTHE [Illustration: (publisher's symbol)] CHICAGOFORBES & COMPANY1912 COPYRIGHT, 1911, BYTHE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO. COPYRIGHT, 1912, BYFORBES AND COMPANY CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Why I Quit 9 II. How I Quit 21 III. What I Quit 31 IV. When I Quit 45 V. After I Quit 57 PUBLISHER'S NOTE This work originally appeared in _The Saturday Evening Post_ under thetitle "On the Water-Wagon. " CUTTING IT OUT CHAPTER I WHY I QUIT First off, let me state the object of the meeting: This is to be arecord of sundry experiences centering round a stern resolve to get onthe waterwagon and a sterner attempt to stay there. It is an entirelypersonal narrative of a strictly personal set of circumstances. It isnot a temperance lecture, or a temperance tract, or a chunk of advice, or a shuddering recital of the woes of a horrible example, or awarning, or an admonition--or anything at all but a plain tale of anadventure that started out rather vaguely and wound up rathersatisfactorily. I am no brand that was snatched from the burning; no sot who pickedhimself or was picked from the gutter; no drunkard who almost wrecked apromising career; no constitutional or congenital souse. I drank liquorthe same way hundreds of thousands of men drink it--drank liquor andattended to my business, and got along well, and kept my health, andprovided for my family, and maintained my position in the community. Ifelt I had a perfect right to drink liquor just as I had a perfectright to stop drinking it. I never considered my drinking in any wayimmoral. I was decent, respectable, a gentleman, who drank only with gentlemenand as a gentleman should drink if he pleases. I didn't care whetherany one else drank--and do not now. I didn't care whether any one elsecared whether I drank--and do not now. I am no reformer, no lecturer, no preacher. I quit because I wanted to, not because I had to. I didn'tswear off, nor take any vow, nor sign any pledge. I am no moral censor. It is even possible that I might go out this afternoon and take adrink. I am quite sure I shall not--but I might. As far as my tripinto Teetotal Land is concerned, it is an individual proposition andnothing else. I am no example for other men who drink as much as I did, or more, or less--but I assume my experiences are somewhat typical, forI am sure my drinking was very typical; and a recital of thoseexperiences and the conclusions thereon is what is before the house. I quit drinking because I quit drinking. I had a very fair battingaverage in the Booze League--as good as I thought necessary; and I knewif I stopped when my record was good the situation would besatisfactory to me, whether it was to any other person or not. Moreover, I figured it out that the time to stop drinking was when itwasn't necessary to stop--not when it was necessary. I had beenobserving during the twenty years I had been drinking, more or less, and I had known a good many men who stopped drinking when the doctorstold them to. Furthermore, it had been my observation that when adoctor tells a man to stop drinking it usually doesn't make muchdifference whether he stops or not. In a good many cases he might justas well keep on and die happily, for he's going to die anyhow; and thefew months he will grab through his abstinence will not amount toanything when the miseries of that abstinence are duly chalked up inthe debit column. Therefore, applying the cold, hard logic of the situation to it, Idecided to beat the liquor to it. That was the reason for stopping--purely selfish, personal, individual, and not concerned with the welfare of any other person on earth--justmyself. I had taken good care of myself physically and I knew I wassound everywhere. I wasn't sure how long I could keep sound andcontinue drinking. So I decided to stop drinking and keep sound. Inoticed that a good many men of the same age as myself and the samehabits as myself were beginning to show signs of wear and tear. Anumber of them blew up with various disconcerting maladies and a numbermore died. Soon after I was forty years of age I noticed I began to goto funerals oftener than I had been doing--funerals of men betweenforty and forty-five I had known socially and convivially; that thesefunerals occurred quite regularly, and that the doctor's certificate, more times than not, gave Bright's Disease and other similar diseasesin the cause-of-death column. All of these funerals were of men whowere good fellows, and we mourned their loss. Also we generally took afew drinks to their memories. Then came a time when this funeral business landed on me like apile-driver. Inside of a year four or five of the men I had known best, the men I had loved best, the men who had been my real friends and mycompanions, died, one after another. Also some other friends developedphysical derangements I knew were directly traceable to too muchliquor. Both the deaths and the derangements had liquor as acontributing if not as a direct cause. Nobody said that, of course; butI knew it. So I held a caucus with myself. I called myself into convention anddiscussed the proposition somewhat like this: "You are now over forty years of age. You are sound physically and youare no weaker mentally than you have always been, so far as can bediscovered by the outside world. You have had a lot of fun, much of itcomplicated with the conviviality that comes with drinking and much ofit not so complicated; but you have done your share of plain and fancydrinking, and it hasn't landed you yet. There is absolutely nonutriment in being dead. That gets you nothing save a few obituarynotices you will never see. There is even less in being sick andsidling around in everybody's way. It's as sure as sunset, if you keepon at your present gait, that Mr. John Barleycorn will land you justas he has landed a lot of other people you know and knew. There are twomethods of procedure open to you. One is to keep it up and continuehaving the fun you think you are having and take what is inevitablycoming to you. The other is to quit it while the quitting is good andlive a few more years--that may not be so rosy, but probably will havecompensations. " I viewed it from every angle I could think of. I knew what sort of ajob I had laid out to tackle if I quit. I weighed the whole thing in mymind in the light of my acquaintances, my experiences, my position, mymode of life, my business. I had been through it many times. I hadoften gone on the waterwagon for periods varying in length from threedays to three months. I wasn't venturing into any uncharted territory. I knew every signpost, every crossroad, every foot of the ground. Iknew the difficulties--knew them by heart. I wasn't deluding myselfwith any assertions of superior will-power or superior courage--orsuperior anything. I knew I had a fixed daily habit of drinking, andthat if I quit drinking I should have to reorganize the entire works. CHAPTER II HOW I QUIT This took some time. I didn't dash into it. I had done that before, andhad dashed out again just as impetuously. I revolved the matter in mymind for some weeks. Then I decided to quit. Then I did quit. Therebyhangs this tale. I went to a dinner one night that was a good dinner. It was a dinnerthat had every appurtenance that a good dinner should have, includingthe best things to drink that could be obtained, and lashings of them. I proceeded at that dinner just as I had proceeded at scores of similardinners in my time--hundreds of them, I guess--and took a drink everytime anybody else did. I was a seasoned drinker. I knew how to do it. Iwent home that night pleasantly jingled, but no more. I slept well, atea good breakfast and went down to business. On the way down I decidedthat this was the day to make the plunge. Having arrived at thatdecision, I went out about three o'clock that afternoon, drank a Scotchhighball--a big, man's-sized one--as a doch-an-doris, and quit. Thatwas almost a year ago. I haven't taken a drink since. It is not mypresent intention ever to take another drink; but I am not tying myselfdown by any vows. It is not my present intention, I say; and I let itgo at that. No man can be blamed for trying to fool other people abouthimself--that is the way most of us get past; but what can be said fora man who tries to fool himself? Every man knows exactly how bogus heis and should admit it--to himself only. The man who, knowing hisbogusness, refuses to admit it to himself--no matter what his attitudemay be to the outside world--simply stores up trouble for himself, anddiscomfort and much else. There are many phases of personalunderstanding of oneself that need not be put in the newspapers orproclaimed publicly. Still, for a man to gold-brick himself is aprofitless undertaking, but prevalent notwithstanding. When it comes to fooling oneself by oneself, the grandest performersare the boys who have a habit--no matter what kind of a habit--a habit!It may be smoking cigarettes, or walking pigeontoed, or talking throughthe nose, or drinking--or anything else. Any man can see with half aneye how drinking, for example, is hurting Jones; but he always arguesthat his own personal drinking is of a different variety and is doinghim no harm. The best illustration of it is in the old vaudevillestory, where the man came on the stage and said: "Smith is drinking toomuch! I never go into a saloon without finding him there!" That is the reason drinking liquor gets so many people--either bywrecking their health or by fastening on them the habit they cannotstop. They fool themselves. They are perfectly well aware that theirneighbors are drinking too much--but not themselves. Far be it fromthem not to have the will-power to stop when it is time to stop. Theyare smarter than their neighbors. They know what they are doing. Andsuddenly the explosions come! There are hundreds of thousands of men in all walks of life in thiscountry who for twenty or thirty years have never lived a minute whenthere was not more or less alcohol in their systems, who cannot be saidto have been strictly and entirely sober in all that time, but who dotheir work, perform all their social duties, make their careers and arefairly successful just the same. There has been more flub-dub printed and spoken about drinking liquorthan about any other employment, avocation, vocation, habit, practiceor pleasure of mankind. Drinking liquor is a personal proposition, andnothing else. It is individual in every human relation. Still, youcannot make the reformers see that. They want other people to stopdrinking because they want other people to stop. So they make laws thatare violated, and get pledges that are broken and try to legislate orpreach or coax or scare away a habit that must, in any successfuloutcome, be stopped by the individual, and not because of any law orthreat or terror or cajolery. This is the human-nature side of it, but the professional reformersknow less about human nature, and care less, than about any other phaseof life. Still, the fact remains that with any habit, and especiallywith the liquor habit--probably because that is the most prevalenthabit there is--nine-tenths of the subjects delude themselves about howmuch of a habit they have; and, second, that nine-tenths of those withthe habit have a very clear idea of the extent to which the habit isfastened on others. They are fooled about themselves, but never abouttheir neighbors! Wherefore the breweries and the distilleries prosperexceedingly. However, I am straying away from my story, which has to do with suchdrinking as the ordinary man does--not sprees, nor debauches, ororgies, or periodicals, or drunkenness, but just the ordinary amountof drinking that happens along in a man's life, with a little too muchon rare occasions and plenty at all times. A German I knew once told methe difference between Old-World drinking and American drinking wasthat the German, for example, drinks for the pleasure of the drink, while the American drinks for the alcohol in it. That may be so; butvery few men who have any sense or any age set out deliberately to getdrunk. Such drunkenness as there is among men of that sort usuallycomes more by accident than by design. My definition of a drunkard has always been this: A man is a drunkardwhen he drinks whisky or any other liquor before breakfast. I thinkthat is pretty nearly right. Personally I never took a drink of liquorbefore breakfast in my life and not many before noon. Usually mydrinking began in the afternoon after business, and was likely to endbefore dinnertime--not always, but usually. CHAPTER III WHAT I QUIT I had been drinking thus for practically twenty years. I did not drinkat all until after I was twenty-one and not much until after I wastwenty-five. When I got to be thirty-two or thirty-three and had gonealong a little in the world, I fell in with men of my own station; andas I lived in a town where nearly everybody drank, including many ofthe successful business and professional men--men of affairs--I soongot into their habits. Naturally gregarious, I found these men goodcompany. They were sociable and convivial, and drank for the fun of itand the fun that came out of it. My business took me to various parts of the country and I madeacquaintances among men like these--the real live ones in thecommunities. They were good fellows. So was I. The result was that in afew years I had a list of friends from California to Maine--all of whomdrank; and I was never at a loss for company or highballs. Then I movedto a city where there isn't much of anything else to do but drink atcertain times in the day, a city where men from all parts of thecountry congregate and where the social side of life is highlyaccentuated. I kept along with the procession. I did my worksatisfactorily to my employers and I did my drinking satisfactorily tomyself. This continued for several years. I had a fixed habit. I drank severaldrinks each day. Sometimes I drank more than several. My system wasorganized to digest about so much alcohol every twenty-four hours. Sofar as I could see, the drinking did me no harm. I was well. Myappetite was good. I slept soundly. My head was clear. My workproceeded easily and was getting fair recognition. Then some of theboys began dropping off and some began breaking down. I had occasionalmornings, after big dinners or specially convivial affairs, when I didnot feel very well--when I was out of tune and knew why. Still, Icontinued as of old, and thought nothing of it except as the regularkatzenjammer--to be expected. Presently I woke up to what was happening round me. I looked the gameover critically. I analyzed it coldly and calmly. I put every advantageof my mode of life on one side and every disadvantage; and I put on theother side every disadvantage of a change in procedure and everyadvantage. There were times when I thought the present mode had by farthe better of it, and times when the change contemplated outweighed theother heavily. Here is the way it totted up against quitting: Practically every friendyou have in the United States--and you've got a lot of them--drinksmore or less. You have not cultivated any other line of associates. Ifyou quit drinking, you will necessarily have to quit a lot of thesefriends, and quit their parties and company--for a man who doesn'tdrink is always a death's-head at a feast or merrymaking where drinkingis going on. Your social intercourse with these people is predicated ontaking an occasional drink, in going to places where drinks areserved, both public and at homes. The kind of drinking you do makesgreatly for sociability, and you are a sociable person and like to beround with congenial people. You will miss a lot of fun, a lot of good, clever companionship, for you are too old to form a new line offriends. Your whole game is organized along these lines. Why make ahermit of yourself just because you think drinking may harm you? Cut itdown. Take care of yourself. Don't be such a fool as to try to changeyour manner of living just when you have an opportunity to live as youshould and enjoy what is coming to you. This is the way it lined up for quitting: So far, liquor hasn't doneanything to you except cause you to waste some time that might havebeen otherwise employed; but it will get you, just as it has landed alot of your friends, if you stay by it. Wouldn't it be better to misssome of this stuff you have come to think of as fun, and live longer?There is no novelty in drinking to you. You haven't an appetite thatcannot be checked, but you will have if you stick to it much longer. Why not quit and take a chance at a new mode of living, especiallywhen you know absolutely that every health reason, everyfuture-prospect reason, every atom of good sense in you, tells youthere is nothing to be gained by keeping at it, and that all may belost? Well, I pondered over that a long time. I had watched miserablewretches who had struggled to stay on the waterwagon--sometimes withamusement. I knew what they had to stand if they tried to associatewith their former companions; I knew the apparent difficulties and thedisadvantages of this new mode of life. On the other hand, I wasconvinced that, so far as I was concerned, without trying to lay downa rule for any other man, I would be an ass if I didn't quit itimmediately, while I was well and all right, instead of waiting until Ihad to quit on a doctor's orders, or got to that stage when I couldn'tquit. It was no easy thing to make the decision. It is hard to change thehabits and associations of twenty years! I had a good understanding ofmyself. I was no hero. I liked the fun of it, the companionship of it, better than any one. I like my friends and, I hope and think, they likeme. It seemed to me that I needed it in my business, for I was alwaysdealing with men who did drink. I wrestled with it for some weeks. I thought it all out, up one sideand down the other. Then I quit. Also I stayed quit. And believe me, ladies and gentlemen and all others present, it was no fool of a job. I have learned many things since I went on the waterwagon forfair--many things about my fellowmen and many things about myself. Mostof these things radiate round the innate hypocrisy of the human being. All those that do not concern his hypocrisy concern his lying--which, Ireckon, when you come to stack them up together, amounts to the samething. I have learned that I had been fooling myself and that othershad been fooling me. I gathered experience every day. And some of thethings I have learned I shall set down. You have all known the man who says he quit drinking and never thoughtof drink again. He is a liar. He doesn't exist. No man in this worldwho had a daily habit of drinking ever quit and never thought ofdrinking again. Many men, because they habitually lie to themselves, think they have done this; but they haven't. The fact is, no man with adaily habit of drinking ever quit and thought of anything else than howgood a drink would taste and feel for a time after he quit. He couldn'tand he didn't. I don't care what any of them say. I know. Further, the man who tells you he never takes a drink until fiveo'clock in the afternoon, or three o'clock in the afternoon, or onlydrinks with his meals, or only takes two or three drinks a day, usuallyis a liar, too--not always, but usually. There are some machine-like, non-imaginative persons who can do this--drink by rote or by rule; butnot many. Now I do not say many men do not think they drink this way, but most of these men are simply fooling themselves. Again, this proposition of cutting down drinks to two or three a dayis all rot. Of what use to any person are two or three drinks a day? Imean to any person who drinks for the fun of it, as I did and as mostof my friends do yet. What kind of a human being is he who comes into aclub and takes one cocktail and no more?--or one highball? He's worse, from any view-point of sociability, than a man who drinks a glass ofwater. At least the man who drinks the water isn't fooling himself ortrying to be part one thing and part another. The way to quit drinkingis to quit drinking. That is all there is to that. This paltering alongwith two or three drinks a day is mere cowardice. It is neither onething nor the other. And I am here to say, also, that nine out of everyten men who say they only take two or three drinks a day are liars, just the same as the men who say they quit and never think of it again. They may not think they are liars, or intend to be liars; but they areliars just the same. Well, as I may have intimated, I quit drinking. I drank that last, lingering Scotch highball--and quit! I decided the no-liquor end of itwas the better end, and I took that end. CHAPTER IV WHEN I QUIT For purposes of comprehensive record I have divided the various stagesof my waterwagoning into these parts: the obsession stage; the caramelstage; the pharisaical stage, and the safe-and-sane stage. I drank myScotch highball and went over to the club. The crowd was there; I satdown at a table and when somebody asked me what I'd have I took a glassof water. Several of my friends looked inquiringly at me and one asked:"On the wagon?" This attracted the attention of the entire group to myglass of water. I came in for a good deal of banter, mostly along theline that it was time I went on the wagon. This was varied withpredictions that I would stay on from an hour to a day or so. I didn'tlike that talk, but I bluffed it out--weakly, to be sure. I said I haddecided it wouldn't do me any harm to cool out a bit. Next day, along about first-drink time, I felt a craving for ahighball. 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 ratherdefiantly ordered a glass of water. The same jests were made, but Idrank my water. On the third day I was a bit shaky--sort of nervous. Ididn't feel like work. I couldn't concentrate my mind on anything. Ikept 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 oldfriends 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 keptthinking how much I would like to have a drink. That was natural. I hadaccustomed 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'ttaken a drink for twelve years. I discussed the problem with him. Hetold me an eminent specialist had told him it takes eighteen months fora man who has been a heavy drinker or a steady drinker to get all thealcohol out of his system. I hadn't been a heavy drinker, but I hadbeen a steady drinker; and that information gave me a cold chill. Ithought if I were to have this craving for a drink every day foreighteen months, surely I had let myself in for a lovely task! I stuck for a week--for two weeks--for three weeks. At the end of thattime my friends had grown accustomed to this idiosyncrasy and weremaking bets on how long I would last. I didn't go round where they weremuch. I was as lonesome as a stray dog in a strange alley. I hadcarefully cultivated a large line of drinking acquaintances and Ihardly knew a congenial person who didn't drink. That was the hardestpart of the game. I wasn't fit company for man or beast. I don't blamemy friends--not a bit. I was cross and ugly and hypercritical andgenerally nasty, and they passed me up. However, the craving forliquor decreased to some degree. There were some periods in the daywhen I didn't think how good a drink would taste, and did devote myselfto my work. I discovered a few things. One was that, no matter how much fun Imissed in the evening, I didn't get up with a taste in my mouth. I hadno katzenjammers. After a week or so I went to sleep easily and sleptlike a child. Then the caramel stage arrived. I acquired a suddencraving for candy. I had not eaten any candy for years, for men whodrink regularly rarely take sweets. One day I looked in aconfectioner's window and was irresistibly attracted by a box ofcaramels. I went in and bought it, and ate half a dozen. They seemed tofill a long-felt want. The sugar in them supplied the stimulant thatwas lacking, I suppose. Anyhow, they tasted right good and weresatisfactory; and I kept a box of caramels on my desk for several weeksand ate a few each day. Also I began to yell for ice cream and pie andother sweets with my meals. Along about this time I developed the pharisaical stage. I looked witha great pity on my friends who persisted in drinking. I assumed somelittle airs of superiority and congratulated myself on my greatwill-power that had enabled me to quit drinking. They were steadilydrinking themselves to death. I could see that plainly. There wasnothing else to it. I was a fine sample of a full-blown prig. I went sofar as to explain the case to one or two, and I got hooted at for mypains; so I lapsed into my condition of immense superiority and said:"Oh, well, if they won't take advice from me, who knows, let them goalong. Poor chaps, I am afraid they are lost!" It's a wonder somebody didn't take an ax to me. I deserved it. Afterlamenting--to myself--the sad fates of my former companions and plumingmyself on my noble course, I woke up one day and kicked myself roundthe park. "Here!" I said. "You chump, what business have you gotputting on airs about your non-drinking and parading yourself roundhere as a giant example of self-restraint? Where do you get off as apreacher--or a censor, or a reformer--in this matter? Who appointed youas the apostle of non-drinking? Take a tumble to yourself and closeup!" That was the beginning of the safe-and-sane stage, which stillpersists. It came about the end of the second month. I had lost alldesire for liquor; and, though there were times when I missed thesociability of drinking fearfully, I was as steady as a rock in mypolicy of abstaining from drinks of all kinds. Now it doesn't bother meat all. I am riding jauntily on the wagon, without a chance of fallingoff. At the time I decided it was up to me to stop this pharisaicalfoolishness, I took a new view of things; decided I wasn't so much, after all; ceased reprobating my friends who wanted to drink; had noadvice to offer, and stopped pointing to myself as a heroic youngperson who had accomplished a gigantic task. Friends had tolerated me. I wondered that they had, for I was a sadaffair. Surely it was up to me to be as tolerant as they had been, notwithstanding my new mode of life. So I stopped foreboding and triedto accustom my friends to my company on a strictly water basis. Theattempt was not entirely successful. I dropped out of a good manygatherings where formerly I should have been one of the bright andshining lights. There are no two ways about it--a man cannot drinkwater in a company where others are drinking highballs and get into thegame with any effectiveness. Any person who quits drinking may as wellaccept that as a fact; and most persons will stop trying after a timeand seek new diversions; or begin drinking again. CHAPTER V AFTER I QUIT I had a good lively tilt with John Barleycorn, ranging over twentyyears. I know all about drinking. I figured it this way: I have aboutfifteen more good, productive years in me. After that I shall lose inefficiency, even if I keep my health. Being selfish and perhaps gettingsensible, I desire the remaining productive years of my life to beyears of the greatest efficiency. Looking back over my drinking years, I saw, if I was to attain and keep that greatest efficiency, that wasmy job, and that it could not be complicated with any booze-fightingwhatsoever. I decided that what I might lose in the companionship and social end ofit I would gain in my own personal increase in horsepower; for I knewthat though drinking may have done me no harm, it certainly did me nogood, and that, if persisted in, it surely would do me harm in some wayor other. Sizing it up, one side against the other, I conclude that it is betterfor me not to drink. I find I have much more time that I can devote tomy business; that I think more clearly, feel better, do not make anyloose statements under the exhilaration of alcohol, and keep my mindon my number constantly. The item of time is the surprising item. It isastonishing how much time you have to do things in that formerly youused to drink in, with the accompaniment of all the piffle that goeswith drinking! When you are drinking you are never too busy to take adrink and never too busy not to stop. You are busy all the time--butget nowhere. Work is the curse of the drinking classes. Any man who has been accustomed to do the kind of drinking I did fortwenty years, who likes the sociability and the companionship of it, will find that the sudden transition to a non-drinking life will leavehim with a pretty dull existence on his hands until he getsreorganized. This is the depressing part of it. You have nowhere to goand nothing to do. Still, though you may miss the fun of the evening, you have all your drinking friends lashed to the mast in the morning. _By the Same Author_ THE FUN OF GETTING THIN Another delightful book by Mr. Blythe, in which he discusses surplusavoirdupois. It tells fat people how to get thin, and thin people willget fat laughing over its delicious humor. Some extracts from the book "A fat man is a joke; and a fat woman is two jokes--one on herself and the other on her husband. " "Half the comedy in the world is predicated on the paunch. " "Fat, the doctors say, is fatal. I move to amend by striking out the last two letters of the indictment. Fat is fat. " Attractively bound. Price, 35c _For sale wherever books are sold or supplied by the publishers_ FORBES & COMPANY, CHICAGO