This post from AD prompted a comment from me I thought I would also share here, for those few readers of mine, who do not also read AD.
My mother suffers from a seizure disorder related to constriction and/or blockage of the small blood vessels in the brain; which has resulted in several aneurysms, many small strokes, and several profound strokes, as well as multiple seizures daily.
Smoking causes constriction of the small blood vessels in the brain, and can trigger these seizures. She has been explicitly told that every cigarette she smokes could kill her... or worse, it could NOT kill her, but trigger a massive seizure and stroke leaving her non-communicative, or even entirely vegetative.
She knows this.
She has in fact already suffered additional brain damage because of it.
The first thing my mother asked me to do when I visited her in Phoenix a few weeks ago?
Take her to the store to buy a carton of cigarettes.