I first started in the late 1950s smoking cigarettes under a bridge that my buddy swiped from his grandmother's cartons.
I mostly smoked cigars in the early 1960s to have an excuse to get out of the house (my mother hated the smell). By the late 1960s I was smoking cigarettes again. By the 1970s I was smoking multiple packs a day. I quit for a couple of years until my mother had a terrible  motor accident which almost killed her and left her blind for life. The stress of the hospital waiting rooms led me to starting again. After a couple of years I quit again but got cocky and slipped back into smoking after stealing tokes from my girlfriend's cigarette. Soon I was hitting in every smoke she lit and she told me to fuck off and smoke my own. That was why I was so disgusted with myself for not figuring out that all I had to do was nothing.

I believe the latest info has it appearing that those benefits were illusory and that alcohol has no positive physical benefits.