I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have perilled life and reputation and reason. It has been in the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories – memories of wrong and injustice and imputed dishonor – from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.

Source:Letter to S. H. Whitman (November 3, 1848)
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