The Price of the 'Effect': A Lesson in Lost Ambition
A cautionary tale of a promising man who traded his health, property, and standing for a descent into the depths of a bottle.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A man once said he didn't care about drinking, only the effect. He never liked the taste of it—it always made him gag—but it was the effect he was after. If it wasn't for the effect, he would never drink a drop in his life. He was a nice young man when we first heard him say that. He had health, good looks, property, and a respectable position in society. The only perceptible effect of his potation then was the high-colored glow in his cheeks, increased brilliance of the eyes, and vivacity of conversation. He was generous and liberal with his money, too, and had a host of friends. Well, he kept drinking for the effects, and he got them, as every man will if he keeps at it long enough. The last time we saw him he was a total human wreck. He was standing at a bar pleading for a drink on time, his trembling fingers being unable to find a single nickel in the pockets of his ragged apparel. He had kept on reaching for his whiskey, and drinking for the effects, until he hadn't any effects left except those painful ones apparent now: poverty, disease, privation, and tarnished respectability. Verily, he got the effects.
“He had kept on reaching for his whiskey, and drinking for the effects, until he hadn't any effects left except those painful ones apparent now: poverty, disease, privation, and tarnished respectability.”
This 19th-century temperance narrative mirrors the modern struggle with the opioid crisis and other forms of addiction, where the initial social or functional 'benefits' of a substance quickly erode into the harsh reality of systemic poverty and social isolation.
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