[noduerme]

There's certainly an experiential difference between consciously stopping yourself from a behavior and not needing to think about avoiding it. If you can walk by the bar/stripclub/second helping of french fries without thinking, "gee, I'd like that, but I'll abstain", then you aren't experiencing what most people would describe as "temptation".

You may be right that if abstaining becomes habitual amd automatic enough, that could be indiscernable from a state in which you have no temptation. But I'd argue it's only "self-control" for the purpose of measuring willpower as long as it requires some degree of conscious decision making.