What was the promise with the head sick?

“First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”

“I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make …”

“Intermittently she caught the gist of his sentences and supplied the rest from …”

“I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfin…”