Peripatetic Conflagration

In his book Sinclair quotes Jack London from the book John Barleycorn:

"Mine is no tale of a reformed drunkard. I was never a drunkard, and I have not reformed...
No...I shall take my drink on occasion.
With all the books on my shelves, with all the thoughts of the thinkers shaded by my particular temperament, I have decided coolly and deliberately that I should continue to do what I have been trained to want to do. I will drink - but oh, more skillfully, more discreetly than ever before. Never again will I be a peripatetic conflagration."