Ben Huang | Author of This Isn’t About Quitting Smoking

Most smokers are not lacking in health knowledge. They know smoking is harmful, and many have seriously thought about quitting. Yet after a meal, during a break at work, or when they feel stressed, their hand still reaches for the cigarette pack. They regret it afterward, only to repeat the same behavior the next time. Eventually, many come to a simple conclusion: I just don’t have enough self-control. But that explanation misses the question that matters most: Why does a behavior that has already been rejected by reason still feel attractive in the moment?

In This Isn’t About Quitting Smoking, I examine this gap through the relationship between beliefs, value judgments, and habits. We can know that something will harm us in the future while still expecting it to make us feel better right now. These two judgments are focused on different time frames and different experiences, so they can pull a person in opposite directions. Knowing that smoking is harmful does not automatically erase the expectation that smoking will provide something desirable. Being able to explain its dangers also does not mean those dangers will carry the same weight at the exact moment when the urge to smoke appears.

Imagine someone working late into the night. He knows he should stop and rest, yet he still thinks, I’ll have one cigarette and then keep going. What feels most urgent at that moment may be exhaustion, frustration, and the desire for a little comfort. The health consequences that may appear years later feel distant. The cigarette in front of him is familiar, convenient, and seems capable of meeting an immediate need. He has not rejected what he knows about health. He has simply placed another feeling ahead of it for the moment. This is where “knowing” and “wanting” begin to separate.

In the book, I use the image of an “old butler” to describe our value-judgment system because it makes this process easier to understand. The old butler remembers what has brought satisfaction in the past, and when similar situations arise, those familiar choices easily come to mind again. Of course, this is only a metaphor; it does not mean there is literally a little person living inside the brain. The point is that if we want to understand why a behavior keeps repeating itself, we must also ask what role that behavior has been playing in the person’s life.

That is why, when dealing with smoking, the important question is not only, “Do you know smoking is harmful?” We also need to ask, “What do you believe smoking is giving you right now?” Some people do not want to give up the satisfaction of a cigarette after a meal. Some do not want to lose the feeling of companionship it gives them when they are alone. Others have turned smoking into a ritual that marks the end of a stressful period of work. Everyone may be holding the same kind of cigarette, but psychologically, they may be expecting very different things from it. If you do not understand what you are reluctant to give up, advice about the dangers of smoking will simply repeat information you have already heard countless times.

This is also why changing a smoker’s value judgment toward smoking is one of the central themes of This Isn’t About Quitting Smoking. The question I focus on is whether a person’s emotional response to smoking can change—whether something once experienced as comforting can gradually reveal a side that the person no longer wants to accept. In this approach, disgust is directed at the act of smoking and what it brings into a person’s life, not at the smoker as a person. Its purpose is to weaken smoking’s attraction. It should not be confused with blaming yourself, insulting yourself, or simply making another forceful promise to quit.

Knowing that smoking is harmful while still wanting to smoke does not mean your knowledge is false, nor does it mean you are incapable of change. It simply shows that there is still a distance between knowledge and choice—a distance that deserves to be understood and addressed carefully. In This Isn’t About Quitting Smoking, I explore that distance further and discuss how understanding can be turned into practice.

Quitting can begin with a much more specific question:

I already know smoking is hurting me. So why am I still expecting something from it?