Please do not try to apply any of the ideas in the book until you come to them in their natural order.
And please do not set an unrealistic target date. You will not stop smoking tomorrow by reading this. You won't stop smoking for perhaps ten days or two weeks. Until that target date, you may even light up a few more cigarettes than you normally would. But on the realistic day of your choice, you will be through with smoking.

And it won't hurt a bit.

Not very long ago, Americans learned that a part of the cranberry crop then on the market was thought to be contaminated by a carcinogenic agent. The cranberry industry was almost wrecked by this disclosure; house­wives not only shunned the shipments that allegedly contained the agent, but also temporarily boycotted all other forms of this fruit—juices, jellies and sauces, whether fresh or frozen or canned, and even when they were known to be made from berries just as pure as cranberries should be.

And despite frantic countermeasures which in­cluded juice-drinking and jelly-tasting in Washington by distinguished public officials—accompanied by widespread publicity contending that one would have to eat mountains of contaminated berries in order to be adversely affected—most Americans, in the name of better health, resolutely resisted tradition and tempta­tion. That year our holidays were berry-less.