My old man used to say that no matter how much you might warn a child about burning themselves if they put their hand in a fire, it would only have any real meaning when they had found out for themselves.
Suppose this is kind of what put me off smoking. As a child i remember by nanna spending the last 5 or 6 years of her life in constant pain after smoking for many many years and getting lung disease. She used to have heart-attacks 2 or 3 times a year and it got to the point where she hardly moved because the exertion of going shopping for example used to put so much strain on her heart and lungs it was often the catalyst for an attack. Its quite a strong message for a child when your nanna describes what its like to have a heart attack and says that, each time during the attacks she felt peaceful and was the only time for years the pain seemed to leave her - i guess she must have been really close to passing away. Give her her due, when she first found out she had the problem she gave up smoking and never had another one.
As a result, i've never had so much as a single drag of a fag and i never will. I don't want to be in that much pain and I certainly don't want my children and possibly my grandchildren to see me like that.