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It can't be repeated enough - we know it's bad for us. And GreyWolf is right - we have to want to quit. Jane the Serial Dieter knows that Snickers bar is bad for her, but she still damn well wants the thing - nobody can convince her she shouldn't eat it. It has to be her own fear of not fitting into her clothes that keeps her from doing it.
I think part of the reason the recidivism rate is so high for smoking - and that smokers (myself included) display this strange "I know what it does, but I still choose" response is that while the negative effects of it are indeed awful, they're delayed for much longer than other substances people get hooked on.
If a person is told that behavior A and behavior B will have identical consequences, but that those consequences will come several years down the line for behavior A (whereas they'll show up immediately with B), they will most likely choose A. I had a heroin habit that I managed to keep functional and hidden for about a year and a half- but by my last couple months as a user, my fingernails were the consistency of string cheese, I was twenty pounds underweight and my liver was so beat having to process shitty Mexican black tar that I had the complexion of a canary. In recovery, I picked up smoking.
It's been four years since I kicked heroin and started smoking cigarettes, and at around two packs a week I can hardly feel any long-term effects. If I hadn't quit, I don't think I would have made it anywhere near the four-year mark with my other addiction. I might still be alive, but I'd be in no shape to say anything intelligible about it. I am consciously aware of the fact that if I keep smoking, I could die a death as slow and painful as the one that I could have when I was using smack - given a choice between lung cancer, poisoning and kidney failure, I'd probably say "Fuck 'em all! Can I shoot myself instead?"
And yet, I still choose - and I maintain that it's a choice - to keep smoking. Each decision to smoke one more cigarette takes into consideration, on some unconscious or pre-established level, the relative probability that I will die of cancer, and the amount of time it will take for it to go that far - and each time, so far, the momentary pleasure and relief I get from lighting up outweighs the fear of a distant threat. I know what addiction feels like, and this definitely counts - but they are not all equal. A tabby and a lion are both cats, yes, but one will scratch you through your jeans whereas the other will rip off your fucking jawbone.
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