CUTTING IT OUT
In Press
By the Same Author
THE FUN OF GETTING THIN
CUTTING IT OUT
HOW TO GET ON THE WATERWAGON
AND STAY THERE
BY
SAMUEL G. BLYTHE
CHICAGO
FORBES & COMPANY
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY
THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
FORBES AND COMPANY
CONTENTS
- CHAPTER PAGE
Publisher's Note
This work originally appearedin The Saturday Evening Postunder the title "On the Water-Wagon."
CUTTING IT OUT
CHAPTER I
WHY I QUIT
First off, let me state the objectof the meeting: This isto be a record of sundry experiencescentering round a stern resolveto get on the waterwagonand a sterner attempt to stay there.It is an entirely personal narrativeof a strictly personal set of circumstances.It is not a temperance lecture,or a temperance tract, or achunk of advice, or a shudderingrecital of the woes of a horrible example,[Pg 10]or a warning, or an admonition—oranything at all but a plaintale of an adventure that startedout rather vaguely and wound uprather satisfactorily.
I am no brand that was snatchedfrom the burning; no sot whopicked himself or was picked fromthe gutter; no drunkard who almostwrecked a promising career;no constitutional or congenitalsouse. I drank liquor the sameway hundreds of thousands of mendrink it—drank liquor and attendedto my business, and got alongwell, and kept my health, and providedfor my family, and maintainedmy position in the community.I felt I had a perfect right[Pg 11]to drink liquor just as I had a perfectright to stop drinking it. Inever considered my drinking inany way immoral.
I was decent, respectable, a gentleman,who drank only with gentlemenand as a gentleman shoulddrink if he pleases. I didn't carewhether any one else drank—anddo not now. I didn't care whetherany one else cared whether I drank—anddo not now. I am no reformer,no lecturer, no preacher. I quitbecause I wanted to, not becauseI had to. I didn't swear off, nortake an