Why I don’t call myself an alcoholic

I used to be a smoker. I smoked a pack a day for roughly ten years. I started buying brands with lower and lower tar and nicotine levels to try to minimize my addiction and the pain I felt in my lungs. The discomfort was especially bad the day after having consumed some speedy narcotic because I would end up smoking twice as much. The last couple of years that I smoked, I hated it. I tried to cut back, but the nicotine and routine of smoking had me chained to cigarettes. I had to have two on the way to work, two or three smoke breaks during work, two more at lunch, and so on. I was always self-conscious about how I smelled and hated the taste it left in my mouth. But despite all the things I disliked about it, I still couldn’t shake it. I thought it would be something I’d have to deal with for the rest of my life.