Dissonance

So I read this

The uncomfortable tension caused by these two opposing ideas — wanting to smoke but also wanting to be healthy and fit — is known as dissonance. As humans, we look to get rid of this uncomfortable feeling. (This is known as dissonance reduction.)
The only way to get rid of this uncomfortable feeling is by a) quitting smoking b) denying that people actually get sick from smoking or c) justifying and rationalizing.

In some comments and it strikes me that I didn't resolve my own cognitive dissonance around smoking but redirected it. Instead of focusing on the dissonance between the damage and pleasure of smoking I shifted to focusing on the dissonance between the pain of quitting and the cost of continuing. The short term pain of quitting smoking is dissonant with the desire to quit but in rolling down the stress curve towards reducing the cost of the habit I think I unconsciously made it significantly easier to quit. I stopped mitigating the smoking dissonance and worked towards mitigating the quitting dissonance. And the only real solution to that dissonance was taking direct action.

Granted that the procedural option I used (stepping back consumption on a week to week basis with no nicotine crutches) probably helped but I suspect the psychology described above played a part in at least making the commitment against the pain of quitting. In other words it pulled down one side of the wall I was trapped behind and allowed me to commit to climbing out.

Then again maybe I'm just an amateur deluding himself.