ABSTRACT
Nobody ever quits smoking—except perhaps in Mark Twain’s sense of having done so hundreds of times—simply because habits are permanent. The “ex”-smoker may for a while “cut down to zero” and may even continue at that frequency for the rest of his life, but he is irrevocably different from the never-smoker. One of the most obvious ways to prove the difference is to let both smoke a few cigarettes: the latter may treat it as a lark, while the former may resume habitual smoking. And there are more subtle behavioral differences between the two, such as their emotional reactions to the smoking behavior of others. The principle that habits (as I shall develop the term) are permanent has important practical implications if one wants to control any behavior, such as smoking. Most obviously, preventing the habit from being formed in the first place is the only way permanently to 132eliminate it. And less obviously, smokers should be accepted for what they are.
