Seriously annoyed with other people for downvoting you and making you feel the need to justify your smoking. Having a reason to or not shouldn't matter, most people who are smokers aren't happy about it. We aren't ignorant, we KNOW its terrible. Not only from education but people will never, ever pass up the chance to shame you for it. If quitting was as easy as just not smoking one day there wouldn't be an industry worth billions or people dying everyday because of related illness.

Rant over, sorry OP. Your story gave me hope that I didn't ruin my youth by smoking at a young age. I'm really happy for you and understand why that was such a huge compliment.