The Opium Habit | Page 4

an effort no more earnest than is within the power
of almost any one to make. A recurrence of suffering more than usually
severe led to a recourse to the same remedy, but in largely increased
quantities. After a year or two's use the habit was a second time broken
by another effort much more protracted and obstinate than the first.
Nights made weary and days uncomfortable by pain once more
suggested the same unhappy refuge, and after a struggle against the
supposed necessity, which I now regard as half-hearted and cowardly,
the habit was resumed, and owing to the peculiarly unfavorable state of
the weather at the time, the quantity of opium necessary to alleviate
pain and secure sleep was greater than ever. The habit of relying upon
large doses is easily established; and, once formed, the daily quantity is
not easily reduced. All persons who have long been accustomed to
Opium are aware that there is a maximum beyond which no increase in
quantity does much in the further alleviation of pain or in promoting
increased pleasurable excitement. This maximum in my own case was
eighty grains, or two thousand drops of laudanum, which was soon
attained, and was continued, with occasional exceptions, sometimes
dropping below and sometimes largely rising above this amount, down
to the period when the habit was finally abandoned. I will not speak of
the repeated efforts that were made during these long years to
relinquish the drug. They all failed, either through the want of
sufficient firmness of purpose, or from the absence of sufficient bodily
health to undergo the suffering incident to the effort, or from
unfavorable circumstances of occupation or situation which gave me no
adequate leisure to insure their success. At length resolve upon a final
effort to emancipate myself from the habit.
For two or three years previous to this time my general health had been
gradually improving. Neuralgic disturbance was of less frequent
occurrence and was less intense, the stomach retained its food, and,
what was of more consequence, the difficulty of securing a reasonable
amount of sleep had for the most part passed away. Instead of a
succession of wakeful nights any serioious interruption of habitual rest
occurred at infrequent intervals, and was usually limited to a single

night.
In addition to these hopeful indications in encouragement of a vigorous
effort to abandon the habit, there were on the other hand certain
warnings which could not safely be neglected. The stomach began to
complain,--as well it might after so many years unnatural service,--that
the daily task of disposing of a large mass of noxious matter constantly
cumulating its deadly assaults upon the natural processes of life was
getting to be beyond its powers. The pulse had become increasingly
languid, while the aversion to labor of any kind seemed to be settling
down into a chronic and hopeless infirmity. Some circumstances
connected with my own situation pointed also to the appropriateness of
the present time for an effort which I knew by the experience of others
would make a heavy demand upon all one's fortitude, even when these
circumstances were most propitious. At this period my time was wholly
at my own disposal. My family was a small one, and I was sure of
every accessory support I might need from them to tide me over what I
hoped would prove only a temporary, though it might be a severe,
struggle. The house I occupied was fortunately so situated that no
outcry of pain, nor any extorted eccentricity of conduct, consequent
upon the effort I proposed to make, could be observed by neighbors or
by-passers.
A few days before the task was commenced, and while on a visit to the
capital of a neighboring State in company with a party of gentlemen
from Baltimore, I had ventured upon reducing by one-quarter the
customary daily allowance of eighty grains. Under the excitement of
such an occasion I continued the experiment for a second day with no
other perceptible effect than a restless indisposition to remain long in
the same position. This, however, was a mere experiment, a prelude to
the determined struggle I was resolved upon making, and to which I
had been incited chiefly through the encouragement suggested by the
success of De Quincey. There is a page in the "Confessions" of this
author which I have no doubt has, been perused with intense interest by
hundreds of opium-eaters. It is the page which gives in a tabular form
the gradual progress he made in diminishing the daily quantity of
laudanum to which he had long been accustomed. I had read and
re-read with great care all that he had seen fit to record respecting his
own triumph over the habit. I knew that he had made use of