Silent organs
January 6, 2012 --
Having worked as a smoking cessation counselor, I can attest to the
difficulty of achieving this particular behavior change. Those who
work with alcoholics describe their work similarly. Both behaviors
have dire health consequences yet are consummately difficult to
extinguish. Part of the reason is that the organs that are damaged
by these behaviors are "silent" -- without pain or sensation --
until they are in extremis.
If lungs felt pain when their delicate alveoli were damaged by toxic
smoke, it would be easier to get people to stop. Finding the
sensations unpleasant, they'd be less likely to continue. Assaulted
by alcohol, the liver, too, suffers damage silently. Alas, evolution
did not anticipate tobacco or alcohol and hence provided no
detection of the harm they do. This silence facilitates the denial
that perpetuates the harmful behaviors.
Compare this to, say, traumatic injury or heart attacks. These
things hurt, so people avoid them. In my smoking cessation work, I
would depict the processes occurring in lungs, circulatory system,
and even the bladder when assaulted by the toxins from tobacco
smoke, in an attempt to apply reason to decisions that are
unreasonable. Alas, education is a less effective motivator than
pain. Those silent organs make it a hard job.
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