I want you to "psychoanalyze away" one of your bad habits!

It can be done—smoking, or even more deeprooted habits—can be discarded by you yourself.

Let me tell you how I stopped smoking.

I was a smoker for thirty years—a heavy smoker.

One day, I had breakfast as usual—and lighted a cigarette immediately afterwards, as usual. I then commenced to read the morning paper—which was. something else that was also usual.

My eye was attracted by a story about Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer.

I was particularly struck by a remark that Shackle-ton had made in relation to the privations that his men suffered. He said that the greatest trial which his men endured was their lack of tobacco. So great was their suffering, in fact, that they smoked tea-leaves and sometimes even hemp rope.

I was impressed in a very peculiar manner by this information. Here were men who had returned from an experience in which only healthy mentalities could hope to pull through. There wasn't a mental babe in the whole expedition; that Antarctic journey was no trip for weaklings. Yet here were the strongest men suffering so acutely from want of tobacco that they smoked dried tea leaves and shredded hemp rope.

I made a little mental picture of myself on such a trip and tried to imagine how I should have behaved. And as I visualized the awful wastes of snow and ice over which those hardy men trudged, pulling their sledges, I felt that it would not take much of such an outlook to induce me to sink down behind some con­venient ice hummock, close my eyes, curl up my toes, and mentally murmur: "Well, here goes."

I tried to imagine myself as being cut off from my beloved weed as Shackleton's men had been, and going on day after day with not even a smell of my "necessary" tobacco.

Then I had an idea; one that was so brilliant, in fact, that it was extremely simple. I thought that I would like to analyze that tobacco craving. I there­fore determined to go without smoking until a good husky specimen of tobacco craving put in an appear­ance, and then mentally to tear it to pieces just to see of what it was made.

I decided that I would not smoke another cigarette until I had felt the same sort of tea leaves and hemp rope craving that Shackleton's men underwent. I knew that I was in the clutches of that same sort of craving; and yet if I had been asked to describe this craving, I would only have been able to write some platitudinous nonsense.

I put away my cigarettes, and went on with my daily routine. I shall never forget that morning. Hungry for a smoke? Not at all. I suppose that I was so keenly interested in watching for the appearance of that great craving specter that I did not want to smoke in an actual way. My interest in the physical act of smoking had evidently become supplanted by an analytic attention.

Noontime came, however, and with it—lunch. After which I felt sure that some signs of the tobacco desire would put in an appearance; and, although I could have smoked if I had wanted to, I had no crav­ing to do "so.

The evening mealtime came and passed, and then I was certain that the real test would come. For thirty years I had smoked at least six cigarettes after the evening meal up till bedtime.

I can see myself now in the little San Diego bunga­low on that evening. As usual, my wife sat on one side of the table in the sitting room, using up her share of the reading lamp, while I did likewise on the other side.

I started to read the current magazine and to watch for that tobacco craving at the same time.

Bedtime came round, and I was sleepy; also some­what surprised. I could have smoked, of course, but there was no craving. And so I went to bed—for the first time in thirty years, without having smoked since morning. It was very puzzling to me. I was not only somewhat mystified, but also a little disgusted.

Since that morning, I have not only never smoked, but have had no desire to do so!

Smoking does not now bother me at all. I don't dislike the smell of tobacco.

I don't preach any "no smoking" sermons, for I don't care whether or not other people smoke.

I kept on waiting for that confounded craving until I got tired; and when I at last came to the conclusion that there was no craving to be waited for, I felt somewhat "cheap." I felt that something or other had put one over on me.

The craving for tobacco is wholly mental. Shackle-ton's men suffered great mental discomfort from the lack of tobacco because they would persist in imagin­ing the pleasures of smoking. They smoked mentally, and naturally suffered mentally.

When I put down my cigarettes on that April morn­ing I did not relinquish the physical act of smoking and then proceed to take up a mental substitute for it. I did not put away my physical cigarette, and then put a mental cigarette into my mouth. If I had done any such foolish thing I should have suffered as much as Shackleton's men did—for about a couple of hours maybe; though not any longer than that, for I should have been puffing away at a very real physical ciga­rette again by the end of that time.

I did not go about like some convicted sinner, miserably bemoaning my sad fate, imagining how nice it would be to be puffing away, and casting up a sort of mental trial balance every few minutes by asking myself whether the game was worth the effort. If I had done so my abstinence might, with good luck, have lasted until about noon of the first day in my experiment.

I went "gunning" for that craving; and for several days I manifested a spirit of the keenest anticipation, for I expected to meet my enemy at any moment.

I didn't suggest anything. Furthermore, instead of running away from something, I went to meet it. I failed to meet anything, however, simply because there was nothing to meet; and, if a thing doesn't exist, it can't very well be met.

There are no physiological reactions whatever in the craving for tobacco. The so-called craving is wholly mental.

But this little personal experience is getting to be rather lengthy, and I did not start out to tell any story, but to illustrate something. My point is that I solved my tobacco craving by analysis. I made the assumed craving for tobacco the object of the whole of my possible attention.

I took my mind completely off any mental picture of smoking, and turned it wholly towards an attempt to see of what the assumed craving consisted. In Freudian terminology: I pulled away my "libido," my "interest urge," from the act of smoking, and turned the full force of it on to determining in what the desire to smoke consisted.

I went after that craving. I wanted to find out just what that overwhelming desire looked like. I was not going to be bothered about such side issues as the cost of smoking, its hygienic attributes, or its harmfulness or lack of harmfulness in a physiological sense. All these might be interesting questions, but at that time they did not concern me. I wanted to look that much-advertised craving squarely in the face, and see of just what it was composed, of itself, in itself, and by itself. I wanted to size it up apart from its associations with hygienic considerations or physiological consequences, etc. I wanted to make it stand alone here in this in­spection. I didn't want any "red herrings" dragged across this mental trail to obscure the points of in­terest.

When I did this, nothing remained. There was nothing to see, nothing to feel, and nothing to es­timate. There was no craving.

For some considerable time still after meals, my hand would move towards my right-hand coat pocket in a sort of automatic way; the way in which it had been accustomed to move for thirty years in search of a smoke. But when I turned my analytic attention to that tendency it seemed as if even that motor reflex action withered away also; anyway, after the first few days of this experience the last vestige of such me­chanical tendencies disappeared.

Now, one cannot keep on expecting something that forever fails to materialize; so after I had kept on looking in the direction of this craving for a little time, and with no response, I naturally came to the con­clusion that no craving existed. I felt justified in as­suming, therefore, that what had hitherto masquer­aded as a "craving" was merely a mental attitude.

That is how I cured myself of the tobacco habit. I cured myself of this "craving" by killing the roots of the habit by analysis.

It can be done with other habits, too.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here….