Problem of Instant Gratification (PIG)

One of the problems with  temptation is that it arouses an instant desire to engage in problematic behavior. This is called the Problem with Instant Gratification (PIG), the more you feed it the bigger it gets, and the less you feed it, the more it shrinks.

So, the longer you can delay indulging the better because…You might find that the urge reduces or dissipates completely over time, something you could not discover if you immediately indulged as soon as you got the urge. This is important. When you feel an urge, it will immediately grab your attention and you are likely to overvalue it because of something called the availability bias…what you attend to is overvalued simply because it has your attention. If you delay in indulging, and other things occupy your mind, there’s a good chance that the temptation decreases.

In SMART Recovery it is explained as follows:

The problem with the PIG is that immediate gratification often has greater influence on us than healthier, delayed rewards. Repeating the pattern reinforces the PIG. Every time we give into an urge, we strengthen the pattern. The Next urge comes more quickly and more forcefully.

More— and less important — events, thoughts, feelings, and other life stuff cause you discomfort, which triggers more cravings, resulting in more urges, which leads to more using.

The minor stresses that earlier in your life you dismissed as annoying are now major issues in your mind, giving me a “reason” to use. Over time you need more of your addictive behavior to find relief, so you may start looking for or inventing triggers to have an excuse to use. You may even create urges so that you’ll have an excuse to act out. The more you repeat this pattern, the bigger the PIG grows. You may feel like you can’t escape this cycle of addictive behavior and that you’re doomed to repeat it forever.

If you don’t give in to urges, they become less intense and occur less frequently. Fewer Things will serve as triggers so you’ll have fewer urges. The PIG shrinks. Learning to tolerate short-term discomfort, and accepting that urges won’t feel good for seconds to minutes until they fade enables you to control your behavior. Within a relatively short time — a few days or weeks — you'll learn to accept short-term discomfort as part of living a healthier life. Your addictive behavior will lose its grip on your life. You’ll understand that using is a choice. Just by understanding that using is a choice and not an inevitable reaction to discomfort, you’re already retraining your brain

This phrase (originally called "Problem of Immediate Gratification or the PIG") has been coined by Allan Marlatt. In his book Relapse Prevention, he writes:

Positive outcome expectancies play an influential role in the relapse process... After a client has been abstinent for some period of time, a shift in attitudes and beliefs about the effects of the foregone substance or activity often occurs. Positive outcomes expectancies for the immediate effects become an especially potent motivation force to resume use when the client is faced with a high risk situation and is becoming to feel unable to cope effectively (low self-efficacy) or is reacting to an unbalanced lifestyle In either case, the temptation to "give in" and relinquish control by indulging in the formerly taboo activity is a powerful influence to contend with. As a reminder of its potent effects I will call it the Problem of Immediate Gratification or the PIG phenomenon.

Solutions

Cost Benefit Analysis

"Education about both the immediate and delayed effects of the drug or activity involved may help offset the tendency to see the "grass as greener" on the other side of the abstinence fence. Information about the long-range effects of excessive drug use on the physical health and social well-being may help counter the tendency to think only of the initial pleasant short-term effects (i.e. the big phenomenon)... One technique found to be peculiarly helpful in the assessment of outcome expectancies in the decision matrix.

Figure 1-9. Decision matrix for smoking cessation

	Immediate Consequences		Delayed Consequences
	Positive	Negative	Positive	Negative
To stop smoking or remain abstinent
To continue or resume smoking

"The decision matrix should first be administered in the early stages of the habit-change process. It can be a helpful aid in the assessment of motivation to change and can serve as a reminder to the client of the goal sor reasons for embarking on the journey of change."

Note: This decision matrix is the basis of the Cost Benefit Analysis tool, where after filling out the chart, there's a step to write down which items are long term and which are short term.

"PIG Awareness - Live with awareness of the PIG (Problem of Immediate Gratification). Learn about the PIG concept and of natural penalties for slips, lapses and relapses. Carry, review and update a Cost-Benefit Analysis or list of reasons for sticking to your change plan."

Externalizing the Urge

"One way to control this problem is to detach oneself from the urges and craving and view them objectively as the external phenomena they are / once you feed the PIG, he warns, the more you will have to feed him" - Allan Marlatt

Notes: Essentially, just by talking about the PIG, we are already externalizing the urge.

See Externalizing the Urge.

Wait 10 Minutes

"Ten minutes might not seem like much time to wait for something you want, but neuroscientists have discovered that it makes a big difference in how the brain processes a reward. When immediate gratification comes with a mandatory ten-minute delay, the brain treats it like a future reward. The promise-of-reward system is less activated, taking away the powerful biological impulse to choose immediate gratification. When the brain compares a cookie you have to wait ten minutes for to a longer-term reward, like losing weight, it no longer shows the same lopsided bias toward the sooner reward. It’s the “immediate” in immediate gratification that hijacks your brain and reverses your preferences. For a cooler, wiser brain, institute a mandatory ten-minute wait for any temptation. If, in ten minutes, you still want it, you can have it—but before the ten minutes are up, bring to mind the competing long-term reward that will come with resisting temptation. If possible, create some physical (or visual) distance as well."

See Delay.

Further Reading

• “Urge-surfing technique of seeing through the “PIG.”” Norcross, Changeology, p. 165.
• SEVEN Putting the Future on Sale: The Economics of Instant Gratification McGonigal Ph.D., Kelly. The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It
• When basic needs are pressing, people may have difficulty thinking beyond today or tomorrow. Drug dependence has a way of foreshortening time perspective (Vuchinich & Heather, 2003). Yet exploring potential life goals also has a way of broadening perspective, lifting one’s eyes to the farther horizon. Miller, William R.; Rollnick, Stephen. Motivational Interviewing, Third Edition: Helping People Change