He was of a rich and powerful family, and could have had a distinguished career and abundance of effective help toward it if he could have conquered his appetite for drink; but he could not do it, so his great equipment of talent was of no use to him.

He had often taken the pledge to drink no more, and was a good sample of what that sort of unwisdom can do for a man--for a man with anything short of an iron will.
The system is wrong in two ways: it does not strike at the root of the trouble, for one thing, and to make a pledge of any kind is to declare war against nature; for a pledge is a chain that is always clanking and reminding the wearer of it that he is not a free man.
I have said that the system does not strike at the root of the trouble, and I venture to repeat that.

The root is not the drinking, but the desire to drink.

These are very different things.

The one merely requires will--and a great deal of it, both as to bulk and staying capacity--the other merely requires watchfulness--and for no long time.
The desire of course precedes the act, and should have one's first attention; it can do but little good to refuse the act over and over again, always leaving the desire unmolested, unconquered; the desire will continue to assert itself, and will be almost sure to win in the long run.