The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-02
LOSING BATTLES
 AGAINST STRONG DRINK Men Who Defy Temptation
 and Sometimes
 Lose. REFORMED DRUNKARDS The Musician Who Died Rather Than Yield
 Penance of Broker.
REFORMED DRUNKARDS

"A fortnight or so ago a news story was printed in the Sun telling how a stevedore committed suicide after yielding to temptation to drink. sev- en years before, after having been pulled through a bad spree with ex- treme difficulty he had bought some 1t if he ever fell to drinking again. He carried this resolution out.
 "A case of what we call the fixed idea, rather unusual among men of the stevedore class, but by no means un- precedented," was the comment on this case of a medical man who for many years has made a special study of alcoholism. Up to ten years ago used to be called in every three or four months to take care of an uphol- sterer whose sprees lasted from ten days to two weeks.
 "Ten years ago he got so bad that I had job to get him through. When he was able to listen I told him that another spree would wind him Up for certainty. He told me there wasn't going to be another.
 He lasted for six straight years, subjecting himself to a veritable tor ture of temptation all the time at that. On the day when he went back to work in his shop after that last bad spree he got a quart bottle of fine old Kentucky bourbon whiskey with a rich bouquet
 This, after loosening the cork, he placed on little shelf immediately above his work bench. Then he went to work, with that bottle of whiskey right before his eyes. Every once in a while he'd take the bottle down, re- move the cork and take long, gloating smells of the whiskey.
 Dropping into his shop, I caught him doing this time and again.
 You're never going to down me again blast you!' he'd say to the bot tie as he smelled of the whiskey. I've got you beat See, I can just fool with you, make a blooming toy of you, and still you can't nail mel and then with a final smell at the bottle he'd cork 1t up again, put it back on it's shelf and resume his work.
 'HThis sort of thing he kept up for six years without ever taking so ml.fh as a sip of the whiskey. When the whiskey would lose the strength of it's bouquet, he'd throw 1t away and get a fresh bottle.
 q told the man frequently that he was torturing himself unnecessarily that he was racking his nerves with out any reason, and that eventually he'd become the victim of an irresist- ible impulse.
 No I won't he protest. The stuff made a fool of me for good many years, and now I'm getting hunk-Tm making fool of the whiskey.'
 Tt was a sort of obsession, of course, but 1t was phenomenal that the man should have been able to carry 1t along for Six years. I should have liked to have my prediction in his case break against me, but it didn't.
 
 of abstention he was going through his stunt of breathing the bouquet of the shelf bottle into bis nostrils and gloating over his triumph over 1t when the moment of irresistible im- pulse arrived. He put the bottle to his lips and never stopped gulping 1t till lie had swallowed the whole quart. Then he fell off his bench in state oi coma and when 1 got to him he was dead.
 "The stuff that he'd conquered fol six years got him in the long run, as had supposed it would all along. But as matter of fact that upholsterer might have killed himself with drink ing long before had he not developed ! that peculiar mania.
 with the bottle there in front oi him to smell he provided himself with something tangible to fight, and as he was a stubborn man this was his sal