It was mine to pick and choose.

I was a lord of thought, the master of my vocabulary and of the totality of my experience, unerringly capable of selecting my data and building my exposition.

For so John Barleycorn tricks and lures, setting the maggots of intelligence gnawing, whispering his fatal intuitions of truth, flinging purple passages into the monotony of one's days.
I outlined my life to Charmian, and expounded the make-up of my constitution.

I was no hereditary alcoholic.

I had been born with no organic, chemical predisposition toward alcohol.