The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Chapter 9 begins with Angie Bachmann, who in the 1990s was a stay-at-home mother in Iowa. Out of boredom, she began gambling at a local casino while her kids were in school. By the early 2000s, Angie had developed a serious gambling addiction that caused her and her family to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. Aware that Bachmann had developed an impulsive gambling habit, casinos tempted Bachmann and her family back to the blackjack table with free trips, hotel stays, and lines of credit. The court system censured Bachmann, blaming her for not being able to control her gambling habits.

Duhigg compares Bachmann’s story to that of Brian Thomas, who in 2008 suffocated his wife while he was suffering from a sleep terror. Thomas had experienced sleepwalking since childhood and vehemently maintained that he was not fully conscious when he attacked his wife. Instead, while asleep, Thomas experienced a fight-or-flight response to a perceived intruder in the house, whom he confused for his wife. When he was strangling his wife, Brian’s brain was performing an automatic response to a perceived threat. It was a habit, like any other. Ultimately, a jury agreed that Thomas had no control over his response to a sleep terror and set him free.

Duhigg poses this ethical dilemma: Both Angie Bachmann’s gambling addiction and Brian Thomas’s attack on his wife were born from deep-seated habits that neither person could fully control. Yet the court system found Thomas not guilty, while Bachmann was held responsible. Duhigg argues that Bachmann should be held responsible for her habits because she was actively aware of her gambling addiction for many years, while Thomas had never acted violently before in response to a sleep terror. In other words, she knew she had a problem, but he did not.