[snikeris]

This is a good point. Those moments where you are ambivalent about a course of action are self-defining moments. If you want to quit smoking, you need to become a person who chooses not to smoke when they have the opportunity to. The problem with habit is that you're no longer choosing. By keeping your cigarettes close, you gave yourself many ambivalent moments in which to build the self that you wanted to become.

[ethbro]

And to look at it another way:

When the object is out of common sight, you only encounter your self-defining vice moments when you're at your most vulnerable (because you willfully sought the thing out).

When you bring yourself into more frequent contact, you provide yourself with more training opportunities when your willpower is greater (because maybe you're already busy, or happy, etc).

Thus, even if you fall victim to the poor choices you're trying to avoid the same number of absolute times, you've drastically increased the number of times you make good choices. And the percentage of times you choose good choices over bad.

Counterintuitive, but I like it!