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Professor Alexander Erskine - A Hypnotist’s Case Book – Curing addictions to drugs and drink - Case 4 Drink and drugs
Identifier
029270
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
A Hypnotist’s Case Book – Professor Alexander Erskine
Within the last few months a case was brought to me which promises to be among the most interesting I have ever had.
It is that of a woman of middle age who for years has been a drug addict. Now, in all my other drink and drug cases I have only been able to achieve a certain cure when the subject has gone to sleep. In this case the woman, for some reason or other, will not--or cannot - go into the sleep state, nor was I able, on the first three or four occasions on which she came to see me, to get full control over her even in the waking state.
She remained, as Arnold Bennett remained, in a state of semi-sleep. But even so, I was able to do a little. She herself accepted my suggestion, and every time she came was able to report that she had given way less and less in the interval.
On the fifth visit I secured almost full waking control, and for a short time was able to keep her in the chair, despite all her efforts (at my command, of course) to get out of it.
I then managed to do in about three minutes more good than I had managed to achieve in all her previous visits put together. When she came a week later she told me that for the first four days she had had no craving for drink at all, and that even on the last two days her longing for it was easily overcome by a little effort of will.
Progress after this was rapid. She went from strength to strength. To-day she comes to me only once a month for her '-refresher", as she calls it, and I have no doubt that she will never give way again.
In this case also the patient is allowed a certain amount of latitude, and she has never exceeded the allowance of drink that she and I together fixed.
A few months hence she is to be put to a crucial test.
She is to go abroad for six months. Despite all the flights of fiction fancy, I can then exert no influence over her; but I am certain that she will come through her test unscathed. She is to-day working her own cure, and I see no reason why she should not continue to do so.