What is the magic, I wondered, that apparently makes cancer caused by cigarettes more acceptable or tolerable than cancer caused by contaminated food? What leads some of my golf cronies to buy a costly golf-course buggy and ride it from green to green in order to "save their hearts," while they calmly continue to smoke? (The death-rate from coronary heart disease for heavy smokers has been set by some authorities as at least twice that for non-smokers; is it okay to die from smoking, but wrong to die while walking from the eighth hole to the ninth?)

Putting my questions in another way: Why, in the face of current medical knowledge, do Americans smoke four hundred billion cigarettes a year? Why, despite personal resolution, do we as individuals find it so incredibly difficult to stop smoking? Why is it that cigarette sales keep climbing, despite the vigorous educational efforts of such groups as the American Medical Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American Heart Association?

After researching this a little further, I began to find answers to these questions. 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. But wait, please, because this system is "without tears." Friends and acquaintances that 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.

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.

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.

It is as simple as substituting a new habit for the old habit of smoking. The new habit does not have to involve licorice eating or using a pacifier or gritting your teeth in self-control, but can be simply something that you are interested in. Try this and you will be surprised at the results.