A
desire constantly repulsed for a fortnight should die, then. That should
cure the drinking habit. The system of refusing the mere act of
drinking, and leaving the desire in full force, is unintelligent war
tactics, it seems to me. I used to take pledges--and soon violate them.
My will was not strong, and I could not help it. And then, to be tied in
any way naturally irks an otherwise free person and makes him chafe in
his bonds and want to get his liberty. But when I finally ceased from
taking definite pledges, and merely resolved that I would kill an
injurious desire, but leave myself free to resume the desire and the
habit whenever I should choose to do so, I had no more trouble. In five
days I drove out the desire to smoke and was not obliged to keep watch
after that; and I never experienced any strong desire to smoke again. At
the end of a year and a quarter of idleness I began to write a book, and
presently found that the pen was strangely reluctant to go. I tried a
smoke to see if that would help me out of the difficulty. It did. I
smoked eight or ten cigars and as many pipes a day for five months;
finished the book, and did not smoke again until a year had gone by and
another book had to be begun.
I can quit any of my nineteen injurious habits at any time, and without
discomfort or inconvenience.
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