My
appetite grew to such a craving for stimulants that it tortured me. It had
slumbered for weeks, as it has since, only to make itself manifest in the
end with the force of a hurricane. While it had appeared to sleep it was
gathering strength. At the time it dragged me down I was boarding with some
others at the house of an elderly widow. So completely was I transformed
from a man into something debased that I went to her house and fell through
the front door on the floor dead drunk. The landlady had me carried back to
my office, where I lay like a water-sodden log, wholly unconscious, until
the next morning. When I awoke I had no knowledge of anything that had
happened. My friends informed me of my fall at the house, and of their
bearing me back to the office. I upbraided myself bitterly, but it was days
before I had the courage to show my face on the streets, so keen were my
shame and sense of disgrace. Time softens the wildest remorse, and in a few
weeks I regained a state of quiet feeling. But unfortunately most of my
associates were among the class of young men who are never averse to taking
a drink, and it was not long before I found myself again visiting the
saloons, although I did not give up right away to take a drink with them.
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