Why did I smoke? Many others did. I was young and I thought it conferred extra manliness and social acceptability. My pipe had become a sort of indispensable adjunct to my personality. In fact I had, quite unconsciously, mortgaged a part of myself to something outside myself, and was busy paying the premium.

How did I give up smoking? I didn't. It gave me up. Instead of having to pay off the mortgage, I gained the inestimable gift of freedom from that addiction (I was a heavy smoker), and better still, a view of what freedom really is.

How did it give me up? While I still smoked I became interested in the Science of being, which is another name for Christian Science. Finding through Science that man's real being is and always has been spiritual woke me up to the fact that Spirit, God, is the only real life-giver or stimulus. Many related truths came pouring into my thought; much that had been obscure in Bible teaching became clearer and more meaningful. The desire to smoke simply dropped away naturally. There was no struggle. Because I had found the real stimulus, the counterfeit had to let go of me. And that was the end of it.

Looked at realistically, nicotine, alcohol, caffeine—all the drugs one gets addicted to—are false comforters. Were they good, valid, reliable comforters, one could never have too much of them. But they all fail to pass the crucial test. The more you take of any of them, the greater the discomfort. Looking for real and lasting satisfaction from any form of matter sooner or later ends in disillusion.

Mrs. Eddy does not mince matters when putting it this way in her book Science and Health: "Passions and appetites must end in pain. They are 'of few days, and full of trouble.' Their supposed joys are cheats. Their narrow limits belittle their gratifications, and hedge about their achievements with thorns." ^{Science and Health, p. 536;} The "thorns" are plain for all to see in the antisocial effects of smoking, drinking—any form of drug taking.

Do Christian Scientists lay blame on those who are addicted? No. But they see massive evidence of humanity's need to turn from the belief that real satisfaction comes from life somehow resident in finite, time-bound matter, to the understanding that God is our Life—that our true being is in divine Spirit. The needed change is so radical that we tend to shy away from it. It runs counter to all the material world has taught us. But it is not willpower or adjusting our body chemistry that will truly rid us of the desire for false comforters. Only a change in the direction of our thought gives us back the dominion we appeared to have lost and sets our feet on the pathway of eternal life.

Almost two thousand years ago the most spiritually powerful man the world has ever known, in love for humanity, poured his heart into this admonition: "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." ^{Matt. 4:17;} In modern language we might restate it, "Change the direction of your thought and action; heaven, not hell, is right here, if you will but open your eyes to it." Jesus could have made no more radical request. Nevertheless, it spells hope for everyone, including those who have felt the curse of addiction.

This change of thought, with the change of action that follows from it—is this hard to do? It doesn't have to be. It is no harder than we ourselves make it. Sincere willingness to accept new views of God and man's part in His creation, and to let them comfort one in a way no material means can even begin to match, is what is needed.

No one really wants to be a slave to any thing. Those things that demand we become hooked on them are false gods to which we need not bow down.

To begin to exchange what the five physical senses tell us of man for Christ Jesus' gloriously effective teaching concerning spiritual man and his relationship to heaven at hand, is the most comforting, freedom-conferring activity that anyone can engage in. Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." ^{John 8:32;} Free to all who accept it, this truth opens the way to healing the addictions of today as surely as it opened the way to healing the ills of humanity in the Master's day. The basis of all healing in this most beneficial way is the commandment that still echoes imperatively down the centuries: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." ^{Ex. 20:3.}

Taking an honest look at them, we cannot but agree that false comforters, false gods of any kind, have had their miserable day. It is long past time we put an end to them. But if all facets of mortal existence that claim to be addictive were physically removed from the earth, humanity would still need the true Comforter, divine Science, to fill the aching void in its heart. This Comforter is at hand for every one of us.