Habit or addiction?

Depending on where you look, you’ll find different definitions for habits and addictions because there is no one definition for either that everyone agrees on. As a Sociology professor, I had to arrive at a definition for each that I could use without fail because it was a definition I believed in and I managed to do that early in my teaching career.

A habit is a psychological dependence. Although some habits have minor physiological markers, it is the thrill or pleasure of doing something that makes a person keep returning to it rather than a physical necessity. For example, gambling, sexuality, extreme sports, and smoking are examples of habits. People who over-indulge in these behaviors do so because of the thrill or the enjoyment of the experience. There’s not a physical marker that makes them return whether they psychologically feel a need to or not, they return because of the emotional payoff the behavior gives them.

On the other hand, an addiction is deeply rooted in a behavior having definite physical markers which literally compel people to return to the behavior whether they choose to or not and is accompanied by severe negative reactions if they don’t. These reactions include the shakes, seeing things that aren’t there, hearing things that no one else does and sometimes the reaction is so severe it leads to death. Anything with a strong physical addictive quality falls under this category and examples are heroin, meth, cocaine, opioids, or any other substance that has a physically addictive component. Overeating is a habit and not an addiction because food in and of itself does not have physically addictive characteristics. People overeat because they enjoy the sensations of eating, not because their body is making them do something they don’t want to do.

I bring these two different behaviors up because I’ve been a smoker since I was 18 years old. When I was younger, I didn’t think about how much I was smoking and, consequently, smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. As the prices of the product increased along with my maturity, I cut back to one pack a day and that was my usual intake for the past 20 years or so of my life. Then, after my heart attack three years ago, I cut all the way back to four cigarettes a day. When I did that, my friends and relatives who didn’t smoke were constantly telling me how easy it would be to quit completely since the number of cigarettes I smoked was down to next to nothing. I tried a few times but it just didn’t work. I enjoyed cigarettes the most over a cup of coffee or a cocktail and literally couldn’t imagine having one without the other. State law that prohibited smoking in bars and clubs certainly reduced my desire for the former but not the latter and that’s what allowed me to smoke only four a day without being able to stop completely. Even having a heart attack three years ago didn’t make me kick the habit completely.

Then a year ago I developed a deep congestion in my lungs that literally made it impossible for me to smoke at all because of the intense coughing that followed inhaling. I also discovered that smoking would lead sometimes to me passing out, which happened to me on four different occasions. So those two factors combined made me give up smoking until the congestion went away. Amazingly, by the time it did, the psychological need I felt to smoke had gone away too. I haven’t had a cigarette in almost a year and have absolutely no desire for one.

I chuckle when I see the advertisement on television to stop smoking by Ray Liotta, the famous movie star. In it, he says he tried everything in the world to quit but couldn’t do it until he found this particular cure. I have a good friend in town who even succumbed to hypnotism in an effort to stop and that didn’t work either. Neither of these people and tens of thousands of others can’t stop because they don’t have the self-control or the motivation to make themselves stop. Smoking tastes so good to them that they always return, rationalizing that maybe they will be one of the lucky ones who doesn’t contract cancer because of a bad habit.

And while they may or may not be right, they don’t think about what the scent of cigarette smoke does to their friends and neighbors. It sinks into your clothing, producing a not-too-pleasant odor on your body. It even permeates your house and your car, emanating the same odor it does on your body. There is never any doubt about what our friends do when we’re around smokers. It’s not a pleasant experience.

I too used to buy the excuse that I couldn’t stop smoking because I had tried everything and nothing worked. You can say no to that behavior just like any behavior you’re trying to eliminate from your existence. Because of the nicotine addiction, there are slight psychological needs for a cigarette when you’re trying to stop but nothing that can’t be overcome if the desire is there.

Companies are making millions of dollars every year with all kinds of stop smoking devices, plans, and behaviors but it shouldn’t cost you anything.

If you really want to stop, you can and you don’t need the help of any plan or person to do so.