The Opium Habit | Page 6

spirits: the world wore a
happier look. The only drawback to this beatific state of mind was a
marked indisposition to remain quiet, and a restless aversion to giving
attention to the most necessary duties.
Two days more and I had come down to twenty-five grains. Matters

now began to look a good deal more serious. Only fifteen of the last
forty grains had been dispensed with; but this gain had cost a furious
conflict. A strange compression and constriction of the stomach, sharp
pains like the stab of a knife beneath the shoulder-blades, perpetual
restlessness, an apparent prolongation of time, so much so that it
seemed the day would never come to a close, an incapacity of fixing
the attention upon any subject whatever, wandering pains over the
whole body, the jaw, whenever moved, making a loud noise, constant
iritability of mind and increased sensibility to cold, with alternations of
hot flushes, were some of the phenomena which manifested themselves
at this stage of the process. The mental elations of the first three days
had become changed by the fifth into a state of high nervous
excitement; so that while on the whole there was a prevailing
hopefulness of temper, and even some remaining buoyancy of spirits,
arising chiefly from the certainty that already the quantity consumed
had been reduced by more than two-thirds, the conviction had,
nevertheless, greatly deepened, that the task was like to prove a much
more serious one than I had anticipated. Whether it was possible at
present to carry the descent much further had become a grave question.
The next day, however, a reduction of five grains was somehow
attained; but it was a hard fight to hold my own within this limit of
twenty grains. From this stage commenced the really intolerable part of
the experience of an opium-eater retiring from service. During a single
week, three-quarters of the daily allowance had been relinquished, and
in this fact, at least, there was some ground for exultation. If what had
been gained could only be secured beyond any peradventure of relapse,
so far a positive success would be achieved.
Had the experiment stopped here for a time until the system had
become in some measure accustomed to its new habits, possibly the
misery I subsequently underwent might some of it have been spared me.
However this may be, I had not the patience of mind necessary for a
protracted experiment. What I did must be done at once; if I would win
I must fight for it, and must find the incentive to courage in the
conscious desperation of the contest.
From the point I had now reached until opium was wholly abandoned,
that is, for a month or more, my condition may be described by the
single phrase, intolerable and almost unalleviated wretchedness. Not

for a waking moment during this time was the body free from acute
pain; even in sleep, if that may be called sleep which much of it was
little else than a state of diminished consciousness, the sense of
suffering underwent little remission. What added to the aggravation of
the case, was the profound conviction that no further effort of
resolution was possible, and that every counteracting influence of this
kind had been already wound up to its highest tension. I might hold my
own; to do anything more I thought impossible. Before the month had
come to an end, however, I had a good deal enlarged my conceptions of
the possible resources of the will when driven into a tight corner.
The only person outside of my family to whom I had confided the
purpose in which I was engaged was a gentleman with whom I had
some slight business relations, and who I knew would honor any
demands I might make in the way of money. I had assured him that by
New Year's Day I should have taken opium for the last time, and that
any extravagance of expenditure would not probably last beyond that
date. Upon this assurance, but confessedly having little or no faith in it,
he asked me to dine with him on the auspicious occasion.
So uncomfortable had my condition and feelings become in the rapid
descent from eighty grains to twenty in less than a week, that I
determined for the future to diminish the quantity by only a single grain
daily, until the habit was finally mastered. In the twenty-nine days
which now remained to the first of January, the nine days more than
were needed, at the proposed rate of diminution, would, I thought, be
sufficient to meet any emergency which might arise from occasional
lapses of firmness in adhering to my self-imposed task, and more
especially for the difficulties of the final struggle--difficulties I believe
to be almost invariably incident