Why can’t I stop smoking? There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think maybe I’ll quit this evening, scrunch the packet and throw it away. But I never do, and yesterday I really looked into my reasons for this.
OK so it’s the addiction that prevents me from stopping, but how exactly does that work? Well it changes my thought processes, making the decision to keep on smoking more attractive than the decision to quit. So far so good.
But what is actually happening in my brain? Examining my feelings, I find that I’m actually not looking forward to my own reactions afterwards. I know from experience that the next few days will find me annoyed and stressed, angry at my own decision to quit. I am fully aware that my mind is a fragmented affair, consisting of several separate units of emotion and thought, so I have put this down to me not wanting to experience the angriness and frustration of the part of my personality that is actually addicted.
I’m scared of discomfort.
Now any normal human being is scared of discomfort and pain, and I suspect this is controlled by an inate "self-preservation module”. Mind would appear to be very highly developed. Certainly there is evidence for this in my past behaviour. I dislike and avoid confrontation with other people. I don’t like trying something new, especially if there is a real risk it will hurt me, or I won’t like it. I have to really force myself to undertake tasks where the outcome is uncertain. I don’t like to stray outside my comfort zone, I don’t like to take risks, and I’ve seen this behaviour in my (currently 10 year old) son. The only times I can seem to override these feelings are with respect to other people whom I have a vested emotional interest in (e.g. members of my family), or in situations where the "self-preservation module" weighs up the pros and cons and realises that taking the risk may result in a Big Reward…or not taking the risk may result in more discomfort than the risk itself.
For example:
Taking nasty-tasting medicine to get better.
Running for a bus.
Suppressing my natural dislike of fairground rides for the sake of my kids.
In all these cases the outcome is clear and substantial – you get better (and hence feel better), you avoid the grief of being late for the bus (even though physical exertion makes you uncomfortable), and you avoid the profound parental disappointment when your kids can’t go on a ride because you don’t want to.
Unfortunately packing in smoking doesn’t give you such an immediately identifiable win. In order to persuade your mind to allow you to quit, you’ve got to give it an incentive. It's got to be something good to offset the very obvious bad (craving, irritation, nerves), and it’s got to be something simple and obvious that the relatively simple components of your mind can understand. Nothing esoteric and intellectual.
Unfortunately it's very difficult to find one. You’re not going to feel better immediately afterwards. You won’t look more attractive to the opposite sex, instantly lose weight (in most cases the opposite), or generally feel much happier and healthier. Although some of these things actually will happen eventually, in the short term, you will feel worse.
Faced with such odds, it’s no wonder your self-preservation instincts almost always persuade you that packing in smoking is a bad idea.
Now about personal confrontation...
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