As good clues should, the new bits and pieces of information fitted together, jigsaw-puzzle fashion, and soon I could see not only why we smoked but also why every one of my many attempts to stop smoking had failed.

AND SUDDENLY I FIND THE "SYSTEM"

From all this came what seemed to be an almost absurdly simple system for breaking the cigarette habit.

The method worked, and I have neither smoked nor wanted a cigarette since. A few years of no cigarettes is not a record, of course, and you're obviously entitled to raise your eyebrows in surprise at my immodesty in rushing to print. But wait, please, because this system is "without tears." Friends and acquaintances who have used it report a complete absence of jitters or compulsive eating. Even in a situation so difficult for the reformed chain smoker as this—living with and loving a wife who refused to stop smoking her two packs a day—even then the system worked.

The approach I want to suggest to you makes use of several principles of self-hypnosis. But it does not "put you into a trance," and it doesn't cause you to act like a robot. In comparison with the "hypnosis" you may think of—to prevent labor pains during childbirth, for example, or in psychotherapy, or as an anesthetic during a serious operation—the method in this book is insignificant. It is like comparing the removal of a splinter with brain surgery.

IT MAY SEEM TOO EASY

In fact, one of the troubles with my system is that it is so undramatic. Nothing happens. You just don't want to smoke any more, the way you just don't want to shoot marbles or play with dolls any more. You've outgrown it, and that's all.

The book won't achieve this, of course; you will. For all practical purposes, you're going to have to talk yourself to sleep for a few nights. You may have done that to others at some time in your life—now you must make yourself yawn and nod.

Oh, and the system also requires that you substitute a new habit for the old habit of smoking. The new habit does not involve licorice eating or using a pacifier or gritting your teeth in self-control. It's so embarrassingly simple that you'd not believe it if I mentioned it now, or else you'd want to try it too soon. Either would make it impossible for me to proceed in the orderly fashion that will make this book work for you.

And so bear with me, please, if occasionally I trudge over familiar ground. It's a short book, and it works.

CHAPTER THREE

In making our decision to stop smoking, you and I have probably traveled similar routes. But for the purposes of this book, it's important to go back over some of the territory we covered independently. First we have to understand why we smoke, which is the subject of this chapter. Then why almost every other method of breaking the cigarette habit has within it the elements of failure; and then we'll learn the new approach, and well succeed at last.

Let's start by facing what seems to be an overwhelming fact. Smoking must be a pleasure. If it were not, why would at least six of every ten adult Americans smoke either occasionally or regularly? If it were not, why would they spend an average of $1.40 a week, every week in the year, for tobacco products?

So let's grant, then, that for most people smoking is a pleasing part of life. And let's not pretend that either of us would sacrifice this apparently delightful habit for minor reasons.