To make my condition worse still, while obliged to use opium daily to prolong even this existence--gloomy and apathetic as it was--I found that in order to think or work with any thing of vigor I absolutely required, every now and then, some excitement which opium now would not give. I tried, therefore, strong tea and coffee and tobacco-smoking. But all these were not enough, and I found there was nothing for me but to try alcohol again; so that the upshot of my experiment of substituting opium for alcohol was, that I got opium, alcohol, tea, coffee, and tobacco-smoking fastened upon me all at once and all in excessive quantities; and the consequence of using alcohol was that no caution I could employ would secure me from occasional intoxication. Such was my physical derangement that I never could be certain beforehand of the degree of effect which alcoholic stimulus would exert upon me, and the same quantity which at one time would produce only the excitement I sought, would under other physical conditions completely overcome me. During my last two years in Brooklyn I made several attempts to break away from opium and other stimulus, and each time made considerable progress. But the same circumstances yet existed that originally led to the evil, and in fact others of the same class had been superadded, while the whole operated with aggravated force, so that I found or thought it impossible to achieve my freedom without disclosing my state, and thus, as I supposed, setting the seal to my own temporal ruin. Once and again, therefore, I went back to my dungeon. It may here be remarked that the sedentary man has extraordinary difficulties to contend with in such a case. His occupation being lonely, and demanding no bodily exertion, he has little or nothing to draw off, _perforce_, his attention from the innumerable aches and tormenting sensations which beset him, sometimes for months without cessation, in going through the extricating process. To sit still and endure long-protracted torment demands a resolution compared with which the courage that carries one into a battle-field is a paltry thing.