the desire and the distaste
struggling with a strong desire to get high again for the second time since breakfast v. a strong distaste about smoking dope with/in front of all these others, especially out in the open in front of Little Buddies, which seems to him to violate some sort of issue of taste that he struggles to articulate satisfactorily to himself.
Context
Hal's habit caught mid-negotiation: the second craving before noon set against a genuine distaste for using in the open in front of the little kids, a scruple he can feel but cannot fully name. The secret user's whole ethic is in that inarticulable "issue of taste" — the wanting is easy to state, the reluctance is the part that resists being said.