Opium Jar 2

"The reader is aware that opium had long ceased to found its empire on spells of pleasure; it was solely by the tortures connected with the attempt to abjure it, that it kept its hold. Yet, as other tortures, no less, it may be thought, attended the non-abjuration of auch a tyrant, a choice only of evils was left; and that might as well have been adopted, which, however terrific in itself, held out a prospect of final restoration to happiness ... I saw that I must die if I continued the opium: I determined, therefore, if that should be required, to die in throwing it off."

"I triumphed; but think not, reader, that therefore my sufferings were ended; nor think of me as of one sitting in a dejected state. Think of me as of one, even when four months had passed, still agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpitating, shattered; and much, perhaps, in the situation of him who has been racked, as I collect the torments of that state from the affecting account of them left by the most innocent sufferer"

- excepts from The Pain of Opium, Confessions of An English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey (1821)

See more from Confessions of An English Opium-Eater.