It is with immense gratitude for Christian Science that I share the following healings of a twenty-six-year addiction to cigarettes and of lifelong allergies. As a teenager I had started smoking cigarettes and was very soon smoking two to three packs a day. After high school I became a social drinker. By age forty my health was poor, and my doctors stated that my long list of allergies caused me to be terribly difficult to treat. I had many medically diagnosed problems, including kidney stones, and an addiction to nasal decongestant sprays.
At this point, I moved to Florida to accept a housesitting job. Shortly after this move, a neighbor gave me a book entitled Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy and suggested that I read it because it might help me with "getting my life together." Boy, did it ever! It changed my life completely. I knew this book was very special from the first line of the Preface. I knew that the "sustaining infinite" of the very first line of this book was God, and I somehow just knew I could lean as hard as I needed on God because this wonderful book would teach me how. As I began to read, my health began to improve immediately.
At the beginning of the second week of my reading of Science and Health, I felt compelled one morning to throw away all the cigarettes and lighters I could find in the house. I never experienced any cravings for cigarettes since that morning, and I never suffered from any withdrawal symptoms or food cravings. I simply realized that I no longer desired or needed to smoke. Previous attempts to quit smoking "cold turkey" had failed. This time, I am grateful to state, tobacco held no allure for me, and it has now been over six years since I threw out all those cigarettes.
