The Opium Habit | Page 3

each sufferer to tell his own story than by any attempt on his
part to generalize the multifarious and often discordant phenomena
attendant upon the disuse of opium. As yet the medical profession are
by no means agreed as to the character or proper treatment of the opium
disease. While medical science remains in this state, it would be
impertinent in any but a professional person to attempt much more than
a statement of his own case, with such general advice as would
naturally occur to any intelligent sufferer. Very recently indeed, some
suggestions for the more successful treatment of the habit have been
discussed both by eminent medical men and by distinguished
philanthropists. Could an Institution for this purpose be established, the
chief difficulty in the way of the redemption of unhappy thousands
would be obviated. The general outline of such a plan will be found at
the close of the volume. It seems eminently deserving the profound
consideration of all who devote themselves to the promotion of public
morals or the alleviation of individual suffering.

THE OPIUM HABIT.

A SUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO ABANDON OPIUM.
In the personal history of many, perhaps of most, men, some particular
event or series of events, some special concurrence of circumstances, or
some peculiarity of habit or thought, has been so unmistakably
interwoven and identified with their general experience of life as to
leave no doubt in the mind of any one of the decisive influence which
such causes have exerted. Unexaggerated narrations of marked cases of
this kind, while adding something to our knowledge of the marvellous
diversities of temptation and trial, of success and disappointment which
make up the story of human life, are not without a direct value, as
furnishing suggestions or cautions to those who may be placed in like
circumstances or assailed by like temptations.
The only apology which seems to be needed for calling the attention of
the reader to the details which follow of a violent but successful

struggle with the most inveterate of all habits, is to be found in the hope
which the writer indulges, that while contributing something to the
current amount of knowledge as to the horrors attending the habitual
use of opium, the story may not fail to encourage some who now regard
themselves as hopeless victims of its power to a strenuous and even
desperate effort for recovery. Possibly the narrative may also not be
without use to those who are now merely in danger of becoming
enslaved by opium, but who may be wise enough to profit in time by
the experience of another.
A man who has eaten much more than half a hundredweight of opium,
equivalent to more than a hogshead of laudanum, who has taken
enough of this poison to destroy many thousand human lives, and
whose uninterrupted use of it continued for nearly fifteen years, ought
to be able to say something as to the good and the evil there is in the
habit. It forms, however, no part of my purpose to do this, nor to enter
into any detailed statement of the circumstances under which the habit
was formed. I neither wish to diminish my own sense of the evil of
such want of firmness as characterizes all who allow themselves to be
betrayed into the use of a drug which possesses such power of
tyrannizing over the most resolute will, nor to withdraw the attention of
the reader from the direct lesson this record is designed to convey, by
saying any thing that shall seem to challenge his sympathy or forestall
his censures. It may, however, be of service to other opium-eaters for
me to State briefly, that while endowed in most respects with
uncommon vigor of any tendency to despondency or hypochondria, an
unusual nervous sensibilitv, together with a constitutional tendency to a
disordered condition of the digestive organs, strongly predisposed me
to accept the fascination of the opium habit. The difficulty, early in life,
of retaining food of any kind upon the stomach was soon followed by
vagrant shooting pains over the body, which at a later day assumed a
permanant chronic form.
After other remedies had failed, the eminent physician under whose
advice I was acting recommended opium. I have no doubt he acted both
wisely and professionally in the prescription he ordered, but where is
the patient who has learned the secret of substituting luxurious
enjoyment in place of acute pain by day and restless hours by night,
that can be trusted to take a correct measure of his own necessities? The

result was as might have been anticipated: opium after a few months'
use became indispensable. With the full consciousness that such was
the case, came the resolution to break off the habit This was
accomplished after