sation of the
kind most red-blooded and live men who do things crave consists of
joining in barber-shop chords of: "How dry I am! How dry I am! Nobudee
knows how dry I am!"

_VII: More Time for Other Things_

And there is this great advantage: Your resources for the entertainment
of yourself are vastly developed when you do not drink. When you do
drink, about all you do is drink--that is, the usual formula, day by
day, is to get through work and then go somewhere where there are
fellows of your kind and have a few. Now when you do not drink you find
there are other things that occur to you as worth while. It is not
necessary to hurry to the club or elsewhere to meet the crowd and listen
to the newest story, or hear the comment on the day's doings, punctuated
by the regular tapping of the bell for the waiter and the pleasing:
"What'll it be, boys?" You do that now and then, but you do not do it
every day.

After mature consideration of the subject I have concluded that the
greatest, the most satisfactory, the finest attribute of a non-alcoholic
life is the time it gives you to do non-alcoholic things. Time! That is
the largest benefit--time to read, to think, to get out-of-doors, to see
pictures, to go to plays, to meet and mingle with new people, to do your
own work in. A man who has the convivial-drinking habit is put to it on
occasions to find time for anything but conviviality aside from his
regular occupation. It seems imperative to him that he shall get where
the crowd is, and stay there. He might miss something--a drink maybe, or
two, or a laugh, or a yarn, or the pleasures of association with folks
he likes. These are important when visualized alcoholically. They make
up the most of that kind of a life.

Do not understand that I am deprecating these pleasures. I am not. I
have already explained how strenuously I worked out a program that
enables me to enjoy them now and then; but the fact that I have quit
drinking makes them incidental to the general scheme instead of the
whole scheme. It gives me an opportunity to pick and choose a bit. It
relieves me of the necessity of being at the same places at the same
time every afternoon or evening. Whereas I used to be the boss and John
Barleycorn the foreman, I have now discharged John and am both boss and
foreman; and I run the game to suit myself and have time for other
things.

Let me impress that on you--the glory and gladness of time! It requires
rat