Then I would get up and drench myself with whisky and wash it down with absinthe. My room looked like a cross between a drug store and a distillery. I had bottles of tonics, invalid’s port wine, whisky and absinthe. I would take a drink out of every bottle in the room and fall down on the bed or on the floor in a stupor and sleep for a few hours. In this manner I stuck it out. I took a small portion of hop each evening, reducing it daily according to the system I planned. Finally I got to the stage where I could skip one day’s portion and get two hours’ natural sleep.
