I understand why you are upset. As I said this is the way I feel deep down in a world where everything is black and white. I know this isn't the reality and it's a good thing. If everybody felt the way I did about certain topics then we would live in a seemingly uncaring world and thank god we don't. My Mums immediate family have all died from various forms of Cancer. Three of them were told early on to stop smoking if they wanted any hope of surviving their cancer. Only one of them did, the other 2 died within a few years. Because of this my Mum lost her Dad at 15 years old. Ii never got to meet him and I know that one of the things he could have done to prolong his life he never did. I know it's hard to beat addictions but people do it all the time. I have given up smoking as has my Dad after 40 years. My cousin was a heroin addict and he has clawed his way up to sobriety. It is their responsibility and theirs alone to think of others around them and do everything they can to be around and the sort of people their families need.

You are talking about 2 different things - mental illness and addiction. Addiction is a lot easier to cure. I was writing about people who are given help with addiction but choose to not comply. I'm not saying it's easy but it can be done.

You were talking about eating disorders and suicide attempts - they are mental illnesses and completely different to what I was talking about.

What I wrote was very blunt and I apologise if I upset you but I really strongly believe that people need to start taking responsibity for themselves.
I don't agree that eating disorders and depression are completely different from addictions at all, there is in fact a huge overlap between them. One problem tends to lend itself to another. I have had personal, first hand experience with all three. I was suicidal and bulimic and hospitalized for years of my adolescence, I was a 2 pack a day smoker until I fell pregnant, I used both alcohol and illicit drugs in excessive quantities. Addictions don't happen for no reason. Perfectly happy, well-adjusted people don't suddenly decide to hit the bottle with great gusto. Of course people didn't know at first that cigarettes were addictive and life-threatening but these days when we have all this information, lighting a cigarette shows just as much disrespect for the self as alcohol or illicit drugs.

Not everyone can just stop these things because they have a light-bulb moment or because something changes in their life. For me, falling pregnant was the kick in the butt I needed to get my life together, but it's not like that for everyone.
When my grandfather was dying of emphysema, he would hold a lit cigarette next to him just to smell it, and not inhale. When we would comment on it, he'd say "but i'm not actually smoking it" . . . then he moved onto taking occasional drags (and denying that he was even though we saw him) and eventually, full-on smoking again just when his health was starting to slightly improve. The fact that he regularly would make late-night visits to the E.R. for an oxygen mask because he couldn't breathe wasn't enough to deter him (and if you've ever seen the look of fear in someones eyes as they're suffocating right in front of you, you'll know what i'm talking about), thats how addicted he was. He couldn't stop smoking to save his own life. He smoked until the day he died. You cannot tell me that THAT is a person who just didn't take responsibility for themselves. He was someone who could not stop, who did not have the ability to stop. Just because SOME people can doesn't mean EVERYONE can.

I'm guessing that we're going to be politely redirected to the topic at hand, so I'm not going to continue this topic either but I needed to put my 2 cents in on this.