But very clear was my resolution never to touch liquor again.

No mad dog was ever more afraid of water than was I of alcohol.
Yet the point I am making is that this experience, terrible as it was, could not in the end deter me from forming John Barleycorn's cheek-by-jowl acquaintance.

All about me, even then, were the forces moving me toward him.

In the first place, barring my mother, ever extreme in her views, it seemed to me all the grown-ups looked upon the affair with tolerant eyes.

It was a joke, something funny that had happened.