I first simply want to address the smoking bit. _Something_ about smoking is habitual, or rather, not to see that a drug addiction could instantiate or engender a habit which itself re-enforces the addiction, might be the main problematic of 'quitting advice.' Rather, ignoring that cigarettes prompt a way of life only suggests to me that said advice treats an idealized person, or biological system, a model.

We are not models. In my comment history I've noted that Juan Enriquez talks of 'living organisms,' not 'life.' Again here I wish to point out a semantic mix up. We are a mix where the advice is technically valid: we have a bio-logical imperative as an organism to reduce or differentiate carcinogen-affected cells, waste, etc. Our bodies do it and so basically we are duty bound to respect, or harmonize, with our more basic functions. 'Just quit' ignores the basic psychological component of smoking, even if that component cannot be exhaustively explained as habit. Habit has two primary forms, situational and dispositional.

When we say, 'Just quit!' We suggest that the dispositional habit is indeed ficticious. It _is_ an addiction. Being internally compelled implies a form of determinism that the agent in truth has no basis for judgement. To suggest that one has such a habit implies a personal capability to predict the conclusion of one's own habit. That being said, one only admits to the internal rules which drugs instantiates within the biological system of the agent. To one must accept the imperative, should one say it is a habit of this sort.

However, a situational habit is different, a more robust problem. At first prompt, we are forced to investigate all the various ways in which cigarette smoking enters public consciousness. To 'quit,' indeed, in similar fashion blocks any fruit that may be drawn from the situational benefits of a situational habit.

I, for instance, often decline cigarettes from close friends where the situation prompts a longform discussion. Another friend has mentioned, in passing, "I don't trust anyone who does not smoke." Andy Clarke has been lauded for his smoker's style. I personally took rolling on as a Special Interest: I can roll a perfect cigarette, reliably, almost systematically. And if anyone ever asks me to do so, I religiously oblige. This is not an internal habit, but it makes sense to describe it as habtiual in _some_ sense. I might share in some activity with this person, call it 'smoking'.

What I am not doing is romanticizing smoking. What I am suggesting is that 'cold turkey' advice should be replaced with descriptive or behavioral models which may lend to therapeutic or narrative models for therapy. 'Just quit' isn't diagnostic, and attempts to reduce the solution to smoking to our basic biological imperative. Fair.

Also, easier said that done. -- So actually work to make this advice relevant. It's blindly proscriptive, where integration and therapy should accompany.

I mean, may I just put it so prettily: "freedom from slavery"? Slavery isn't anything like a biological function of nature. When one quits cigarettes, one is avoiding something external to one's self. Slavery isn't some inevitable feature of, trade, or political systems, that one chooses or does not. The whole way of putting it, as freedom from slavery, does more harm than good. I think it misleading and sensationalist. Cigarettes are evolutionarily novel, indeed, but what still remains is that they are a feature of civilization, the mix of the raw forces of selection and human intelligence.