By Howard Rachlin
‘I know these will kill me, I’m just not convinced that this particular one will kill me.’
–Jonathan Miller to Dick Cavett on his lit cigarette, backstage at the 92nd Street Y in New York
Jonathan Miller’s problem is actually a practical form of the central problem of ancient Greek philosophy (a problem that continues to haunt philosophy up to the present day): the essential relationship between the abstract and the particular. Miller is right. No particular cigarette can harm a person, either now or later. Only what is essentially an abstraction (the relationship between rate of smoking and health) will harm him. Can it be that Miller is just not a very smart person incapable of understanding abstractions? No way. He is a “public intellectual,” a British theater and opera director, actor, author, humorist, and sculptor. And on top of that a medical doctor.
No matter how smart we are, we all tend to focus on the particular when it comes to our own behavior. Only when we observe someone else’s behavior or when circumstances compel us to experience the long-term consequences of our own behavior, are we able to feel their force.
How then can we use our brains to bring our behavior under the control of its wider consequences? First, and most obviously, to control our behavior we have to know what exactly that behavior is. That is, we must make ourselves experts on our own behavior. It is this step – self-monitoring – that is by far the most difficult part of self-control. Modern technology can make self-monitoring easier, but I myself prefer to just write things down. At points in my life where I need to control my weight I keep a calorie diary in which I write down everything I eat, its caloric content, and the sum of the calories I eat each day. Then I make summaries each week. If I were trying to control my smoking I would record each cigarette and the time of day I smoked it – or, each glass of scotch, each heroin injection, each cocaine snort, each hour spent watching television or doing crossword puzzles when I should be writing, etc. Every instance goes down in the book. There is no denying it – this is hard to do. For one thing, it is socially difficult. You don’t want to interrupt a dinner party by running into the bathroom every five minutes to write down that you’ve bitten your nails again. This is one reason it’s good to be married (I’m serious). Your spouse (whose objective view is necessarily better than your own subjective view) will remember until you get home. Or you can (and should) train yourself to remember over short periods.
You may say that by recording your behavior you are constricting your freedom, but in this regard it is good to remember the poet Valerie’s advice: “Be light like a bird and not like a feather.”
This first step – self-monitoring – is so important, and so difficult, that it should not be mixed up with actual efforts at habit change. First make yourself an expert on yourself. Make charts; make graphs, if that comes naturally. But at least write everything down and make weekly and monthly summaries. Sometimes this step alone, without further effort, will effect habit change. But do not at this point try in any way to change whatever habit you are trying to control. Once you become an expert on yourself, you will be 90% there. The rest is all downhill.
After you have gained self-observational skill, you are ready to proceed to the second step. For example, Jonathan Miller’s problem is that, so to speak, each particular cigarette weighs too little. How could he have given it more weight? Let us say that Miller has already completed Step 1 and is recording each cigarette smoked and the time it was smoked. (Note that this already gives the cigarette weight. It doesn’t just go up in smoke but is preserved in his log.) Let us say further that the day of his encounter with Cavett was a Monday. On that day Miller smokes as much as he wants to. He makes no effort to restrict his smoking in any way. (He is still recording each instance.) However, on Tuesday he must force himself to smoke exactly the same number of cigarettes as he did on Monday. If necessary he must sit up an extra hour on Tuesday to smoke those 2 or 3 cigarettes to make up the total. Then on Wednesday he is free again, and on Thursday he has to mimic Wednesday’s total. Now, when he lights a cigarette on Monday he is in effect lighting up two cigarettes – one for Monday, and one for Tuesday. As he keeps to this schedule, and organizes his behavior into 2-day patterns, it should be coming under control of the wider contingencies. Once this pattern is firmly established, he can extend the pattern to three days, duplicating his Monday smoking on Tuesday and Wednesday, then Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, etc., always continuing to record his behavior. Eventually, each cigarette he lights up on Monday will effectively be 7 cigarettes – one for each day of the week. The weight of each cigarette will thus increase to the point where he no longer can say, “I’m not convinced that this particular cigarette will kill me.”
At no point is he trying to reduce his smoking or exerting his willpower. Willpower is not a muscle inside the head that can be exerted. It is bringing behavior under the control of wider (and more abstract) contingencies. This is a power that anyone can do who has the intelligence and is willing to invest the effort and time. And the exercise of this power can make a smart person happy.
Note: There is yet a third step – or rather a flight of steps. I have not mentioned social support. I have not mentioned exercise. Both of these are economic substitutes for addictions of various kinds. If either is lacking in an addict’s life, programs need to be established for its institution. I am assuming that we’re talking about the happiness of someone who already has an active social life, who already is as physically active as conditions allow. Addiction is not an isolated thing. It has to be regarded in the context of a complete life.
Howard Rachlin was trained as an engineer at Cooper Union and as a psychologist at The New School University and Harvard University. He has taught at Harvard University and at Stony Brook University. His current research, supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, lies in the development of methods for fostering human self-control and social cooperation. He is the author of The Escape of the Mind.
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Asking me as a writer to choose one short story from an anthology to blog about it almost as difficult as asking me as a parent to name my favorite child! So let me begin by saying that since this collection brings together the work of pretty much every big writer in YA today, every piece is terrific.
That being said, I chose to focus on Corpse Eaters by Melissa Marr, not so much for the obvious reasons (her name headlining the cover plus the “eat” right there in the title), but because I haven’t yet read her Wicked Lovely series.*
Now, since the stories from authors whose books I’ve read previously – Margaret Stohl, Veronica Roth, Kelley Armstrong – were written in their recognizable styles, I do feel like I have a good idea now of how Marr writes as well. And it’s gruesome. Or might I say gruesomely good. Because the detail is so fine that it will both put you right into the middle of the scene, as well as reclaim your senses hours later.
Here, let me show you:
In Eaters, there’s a vat for storing bodies that “[looks] remarkably like a cross between an aquarium and one of the coffee dispensers at every church dinner [Harmony] remembered.” Can you see it? Horrific, right? But that’s not what I found to be the most disturb/gusting thing in the story.
No, I awarded that honor when I read how Harmony and Chris came to be partners in the war against the Nidos (devotees of the new god on Earth, Nidhogg), and I got a glimpse into Chris’s back-story:
The fourth [bottle] had a good inch of liquid – hopefully gin – in it. Unfortunately, it also had a cigarette butt floating in it. He paused, shrugged, and lifted the bottle to his lips.
Blech! That moment is so clear on so many sensory levels – sight, touch, taste – that there is no doubt that this character was devastated by the loss of his first partner. Yup, if we were playing Meta-Me and the prompt was “rock bottom,” Marr would absolutely be the uncontested winner.
Of course, there are many other facets to the story – action, love, family dysfunction, dystopia – told with equal detail, but none resonated more strongly with me than that foul taste. I mean, even the dead corpses floating in giant serving vessels I could get past – maybe because they were unreal to get to me. But I can too easily feel exactly what an old soggy Marlboro stub sloshing around in a mouthful of gin would feel like. And I. Just. Can’t. Sooo awful…ly well-written. ;)
*I read awhile back that Wicked Lovely had been optioned for film and, whenever that happens, I try to hold off on the book until close to the movie premiere to best compare them. However, in this case, I’m still not seeing production schedule or predicted release date, so I may have to just start reading. ;)
Yay! Almost finished! He's not stuffed with cotton yet. For now he's stuffed with...
PRINGLES!!!
But not just any Pringles...
Photo booth photos are reflected (wah wah), but yes, that's grilled shrimp flavor. And the pringles are as pink as the can! WEIRD
The gold is such a good touch :)
Baller status. Time to start sewing!
by Annette Leal Mattern
I began researching this article in a completely different frame of mind. I had recently come across hideous marketing campaigns by the makers of Virginia Slims and Camel cigarettes. Both campaigns specifically target young girls, wooing them by creating an image - women who smoke are sexy and hip and free. Chic new packaging make the cigarettes a fashion statement and I wondered how many impressionable young girls (yes girls, not women) fell under the spell, succumbed to the myth. How many new smokers joined the ranks?
Last year, Camel, a male-dominated brand, packaged their cigarettes in fuchsia
and mint lined, black shiny boxes and called them Camel No. 9, a clear rip-off of French perfume Channel No. 19. This year, Virginia Slims launched a campaign that packages “stiletto” thin cigarettes in adorable pink and teal half-size purses, the must-have accessory for the clubbing crowd.
Naturally, I expected young Latinas to be very vulnerable to this marketing hype . . . but I was wrong. In this category, Hispanic women are not leading this pack and I’m thrilled. In this race, we don’t want to be first.
Around 1925, Edward Louis Bernays originated modern public relations by
drawing upon his uncle Sigmund Freud's psychological ideas for the benefit of marketing products. Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the subconscious. One of his first industries: tobacco.
The subsequent 83 years have been a constant flow of subliminal messages about cigarettes as exciting, smooth tasting, satisfying, manly, sexy, sophisticated, chic, classy, slick and even healthy. We met the Marlboro Man, all rugged yet polished, and we were hooked. And millions of Americans bought pack after pack
after pack.
Here are the statistics of smokers in the United States:
-Among non-Hispanic whites, 23.5 percent of men and 18.8 percent of women smoke.
- Among Hispanics, 20.1 percent of men and 10.1 percent of women smoke.
Among the youth, 22% of Hispanic high school students smoke, compared with 25% of Whites. Even younger, 9% of the Hispanic middle school student population are smokers.
A study by the Center for Disease control attributes this disparity to an important cultural difference: Seventy-one percent (71%) of all Hispanic households do not allow smoking in the home. This smoking ban in the home further protects Hispanic youth from secondhand smoke.
Hispanic smokers are more likely to try to quit than White smokers but are less likely to have access to resources such as doctors or nicotine replacement therapy, so they are not as successful. Only 43% of Hispanic smokers are able to quit, compared to 51% of Whites. 
Unfortunately, the Hispanic community is drifting closer to the White smoker, as families become more acculturated into the mainstream of the U.S. and this is not good.
So here’s the ugly part no one wants to hear-
Cancer is the second leading cause of death among Hispanics in the U.S. Almost one in five Hispanic deaths is attributable to cancer. Over 20,000 Hispanics died of cancer in 2002. In 2000, about 1,000 Hispanic women and 2,000 Hispanic men died of lung cancer. Cigarette smoking is overwhelmingly the most important cause of lung cancer, but it also increases the risk for other cancers, including cervix, mouth, larynx, pharynx, esophagus, kidney, bladder, pancreas, stomach and some forms of leukemia.
Additionally, heart attacks/ cardiovascular disease are the primary cause of death of Hispanics in the United States. In 2002, heart disease killed more than 27,000 Hispanics. Smoking is a major cause of heart disease.
The third leading cause of death in the U.S. and fourth among Hispanics is stroke. In 2002, nearly 6,500 Hispanics died of strokes. Smoking significantly increases the risk for stroke. Overall, smokers have a life span that is 15 years shorter than non-smokers. 
If you smoke, find a way to quit - - now. Please. Whatever it takes, you must stop, for yourself, for the people who love you, for the rest of us. I lost people I loved to lung cancer and the pain, the loss, the grief, the missed years, the caregiving and the cost are all our business.
Find resources and set yourself up for success. Search the Internet for smoke cessation and you’ll find tons of resources to support you. The current thinking on smoke cessation is that a multi-prong program is best, using prescription medications, nicotine replacement and mind/body tools such as exercise, yoga, meditation or even hypnosis.
If teenagers in your household are smoking, make it a top priority to get them to quit. To them, smoking is an initiation ritual and a sign of independence. But it will soon become a deadly habit that most smokers regret.
We need to build a world where young people reject tobacco because they see it for what it is, an addictive and toxic practice designed to seduce our very own ego.
And, as the Hispanic “market segment” grows, we’ll see more and more Latinos and Latinas in ads with gorgeous clothes and fast cars, beautiful brown skin and dark eyes, sensual and sophisticated and smoking. It’s smart marketing.
About the author:
Annette Leal Mattern held numerous corporate leadership positions where she championed development of minorities for upper management. She received the National Women of Color Technology Award for Enlightenment for her diversity achievements and was recognized by Latina Style and Vice President Gore as one of the most influential Latinas in American business. In 2000, she left her corporate work to devote herself to women's cancer causes. Her book, Outside The Lines of love, life, and cancer, helps people cope with the disease. Annette serves on the board of directors of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance and founded the Ovarian Cancer Alliance of Arizona, for which she serves as president. Annette also writes for http://www.empowher.com.
