When I think about smoking and addiction, I think about how genetics and early childhood experiences actually allow us much less "free will" than we'd like to admit, especially in the US.
I picked up smoking in my late teens and early twenties. I tended to smoke socially, but still sometimes smoked by myself. Probably about 2 years into I thought "this is dumb", and just stopped. I never felt addicted. Quitting wasn't difficult for me at all - at the time I was pretty busy so I didn't even really miss it. Basically, I just really don't have an addictive personality or whatever other part of our genes causes people to get addicted. I could quit without a second thought, but many other people I know who started around the same time I did are either still smoking or have had a hell of a time trying to quit.
I bring this up because there are so many things that we think of are due to an excess or lack of will power (this view is especially prevalent in the US) - if you are overweight it's because you lack willpower, if you can't quit smoking you lack willpower, etc. etc. My point is that this is usually not true. I was able to quit smoking not because I had a ton of willpower, but because I didn't need it.
What evidence do you have that this isn't true? It's not really a falsifiable position (since nature vs nurture is hard to show) and free will hard to measure.
To me, it simply seems more convenient for the audience to believe free will doesn't exist and addition is genetic.
There is plenty out there [0]. Certain substances are at a baseline and without question addictive for humans, do enough of it and anyone can become an addict regardless of free will. Genetics play a role in susceptibility and level of dependence, as do other factors like underlying mental illness. If you ever see a full blown alcoholic going through withdrawals [1] it becomes clear that physical substance addiction is very much a real thing.
I picked up smoking in my late teens and early twenties. I tended to smoke socially, but still sometimes smoked by myself. Probably about 2 years into I thought "this is dumb", and just stopped. I never felt addicted. Quitting wasn't difficult for me at all - at the time I was pretty busy so I didn't even really miss it. Basically, I just really don't have an addictive personality or whatever other part of our genes causes people to get addicted. I could quit without a second thought, but many other people I know who started around the same time I did are either still smoking or have had a hell of a time trying to quit.
I bring this up because there are so many things that we think of are due to an excess or lack of will power (this view is especially prevalent in the US) - if you are overweight it's because you lack willpower, if you can't quit smoking you lack willpower, etc. etc. My point is that this is usually not true. I was able to quit smoking not because I had a ton of willpower, but because I didn't need it.