"At least it's not something worse"

A lot of readers will have a comparison ready. It's a biscuit, not a bottle. It's the phone, not the casino. Whatever this is, it's the mild version, and mild versions don't need books.

I'd ask you to notice something about the four remedies, which is that they're interchangeable. The feeling at twenty past three can be met with a biscuit or the phone, and which one depends on which is nearer. The flat half hour can be wine or a screen. People who give up one remedy nearly always find another, and it's usually not because they chose it. The hand goes where the remedy is. That's the point. The habit isn't the biscuit or the wine. It's the move from flicker to hand, and the move doesn't care what it lands on.

That has two consequences. The first is that "at least it's not something worse" is true today and says nothing about next year, because the move is the same move and it'll take whatever's available. The NHS's advice on stress says not to use alcohol, cigarettes, gambling or drugs to relieve it, and its list of stress-busters says that these can provide temporary relief but in the long term won't solve the problem and will create new ones. I'd say the same of the four remedies, at a smaller scale. The relief is temporary and each remedy brings its own bill.

The second consequence is the useful one. If the habit is the move and not the item, then you don't have to give up biscuits. You have to change the move. That's what the second half of the book does, and it doesn't ask you to touch the biscuit drawer. It asks you to put ten minutes between the flicker and the hand, and let the wave show you what it was.

So keep the comparison if it helps you feel better about the biscuit, because there's nothing wrong with the biscuit. Just don't let it tell you that there's nothing here to look at.