Kicking the Habit

Cigarette smoking may indeed be hazardous to health, as that little sign on each packet warns. Quitting can be equally risky. TIME Writer Bob McCabe, a three-pack-a-day smoker, suffered through a 13-day Caribbean "Stop-Smoking Cruise" that ended last week. His ill-tempered report:

We stumble aboard the Prudential-Grace liner S.S. Santa Paula as the rain pours down, our loved ones deftly plucking the last packages of cigarettes from our nerveless hands. We are to spend almost two weeks aboard ship. The cruise sponsor, the Institute for New Motivations, has decreed that we will be without tobacco, subject to endless lectures and exhortations by psychologists, defenseless against encounter-group leaders and a hypnotist who is all but guaranteed to free us from our habit. A few fling matches and even treasured lighters into the Hudson. Others are caching cigarettes throughout the ship.

As the Santa Paula moves down the Hudson toward the sea, my first faint yearnings for a cigarette coalesce into raving desire. A quick drink only magnifies the pangs. The dinner gong bongs and I meet my tablemates: we loathe each other on sight. One sucks on dummy cigarettes. Another is clearly going to have no trouble quitting: he is too loaded to light a cigarette. Says Hy, a Newark businessman: "We are all compulsive suicides."

Moment of Confrontation. The speeches begin as coffee is poured. We are going to have "fun," says Dr. William J. Nemon, hypnotist and medical director, while we learn not to care about cigarettes. Arbitrarily, we are divided into groups, and I size up my leader, Dr. Gordon F. Derner. He is wearing cowboy boots and a crew haircut, and he keeps telling us to share our feelings. One addict, Arthur, admits that he has half a pack in his pocket. "Put it on the table," the doctor suggests. Reluctantly, he does. As we watch, horrified, a sincere young mod named Lana picks up the packet and shreds the cigarettes. Shaken, we head for our bunks.

Over the next three days, the antismoking message is pounded home. At our first hypnosis seminar, Nemon shows us how to put ourselves into trances. As he talks, most of the listeners drop off, and Nemon intones the credo: tobacco is a poison to the body, you need your body to live, and thus you must protect your body from further poisoning.

At the twice-a-day encounter-group sessions, fellow members tell of extraordinary yearnings for a smoke, and a surprising number admit that they are still yielding. A palefaced Alan says: "I've been so seasick all day that I haven't had a chance to think about smoking, but as soon as I'm well, I'll start again. I'm weak, I know I'm weak." Obviously, Alan's motivation is already shaky: "You can't just stand around at cocktail parties smoking a carrot," he complains.

We are kept busy, which is part of the plan. "This is a four-pronged program," says Dr. George D. Goldman, a psychoanalyst from Garden City, N.Y. "We have a controlled environment, without cigarettes, which cuts down the social-habit motivation. The groups help reinforce the nonsmoking motivation. The breathing and hypnotism classes do the same, and the films and lectures complete the program." These techniques have been aimed at smokers before--but never in a sustained barrage. Now we are the targets--at $250 apiece over usual cruise fares.

At a press conference, I learn that although we have 204 passengers aboard, only 99 are smokers who are participating in the program, and of these, only about 65 to 75 have completely stopped smoking. The nonparticipants include freeloading employees of the sponsors, the professional staff and Comedienne Phyllis Diller and her entourage (she's along for public relations reasons).

First indoctrination completed, we dock at Curac,ao for a run ashore. Suddenly everyone we see seems to be smoking, and we plunge into the shops--or the clear sea--to escape. The weakest-willed flee back to the ship. This is to be the pattern for the next several days. Aruba proves particularly dangerous: the excitement of its busy casinos traps winners and losers alike into forgetting their vows.

New Incarnation. During the group sessions, however, camaraderie grows. A cheerful, plump woman reports suffering a five-stitch scalp cut earlier in the day but finding she did not need a cigarette to ease the shock. We applaud. Arthur, however, still craves a smoke. "I started to eat a carnation at our table," he says, "and it was better than spinach. But I know that if I really get to like them, Ralph Nader will come out next day and tell me that carnations are injurious to my health."

As we head north toward Florida and New York again, Goldman seems optimistic. "Right now," he says, "I figure that about two-thirds of the smokers are off tobacco." The real test will come once the voyage has ended. Says Goldman: "It would be wonderful if 30 to 40 percent quit permanently. We expect a minimum of 15 to 20 percent." At a costume ball as the cruise nears its end, a blonde dressed as a cigarette girl saunters out. Our applause is fiery and approving, the band goes into Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, and we are all left to worry about how long our tobacco cure really will last.

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