But I got to staying in the saloons more than in my office, and began to go
down steadily. Good people who felt sorry for me, and who wanted to aid me,
would do nothing for me unless I would do something for myself, and this I
could not, or did not do.
I moved from office to office, always descending in respectability, because
always violating my promises not to drink. Occasionally I would make a
desperate effort to reform, gathering about me every element of strength
which I could possibly command, and for a while I would be successful, but
just as hope would begin to light up my darkened path and my friends begin
to feel a new-born confidence in me, an infernal and terrible desire would
take possession of me, and in a moment all that I had gained would be swept
away by my yielding to the demon that tempted me. A debauch longer and more
utterly sickening and vile than the last followed, after which I would
settle down into a condition of hopelessness which would appal the bravest
and strongest. So deplorable, indeed, was my feeling regarding the matter
that then, as since, I kept on drinking for days after the appetite had
left me or had been satiated, in order to deaden the horrible agony that I
knew would crush me when my reason returned.
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