I have often been asked how I first came to be a regular opium-eater, and
have suffered, very unjustly, in the opinion of my acquaintance from
being reputed to have brought upon myself all the sufferings which I
shall have to record, by a long course of indulgence in this practice
purely for the sake of creating an artificial state of pleasurable
excitement. This, however, is a misrepresentation of my case. True it
is that for nearly ten years I did occasionally take opium for the sake
of the exquisite pleasure it gave me; but so long as I took it with this
view I was effectually protected from all material bad consequences by
the necessity of interposing long intervals between the several acts of
indulgence, in order to renew the pleasurable sensations. It was not for
the purpose of creating pleasure, but of mitigating pain in the severest
degree, that I first began to use opium as an article of daily diet. In
the twenty-eighth year of my age a most painful affection of the stomach,
which I had first experienced about ten years before, attacked me in
great strength. This affection had originally been caused by extremities
of hunger, suffered in my boyish days. During the season of hope and
redundant happiness which succeeded (that is, from eighteen to twenty-
four) it had slumbered; for the three following years it had revived at
intervals; and now, under unfavourable circumstances, from depression of
spirits, it attacked me with a violence that yielded to no remedies but
opium.
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