Thankfully the cigarette problem isn't mine, I have no past and hopefully no future of addiction. But I know how stupendously hard it can be to jump over one's shadow and give up short-term gratifications for the benefit of long-term goals or payoffs. I'm a rather impulsive person, but thankfully I never smoked regularly and I stopped drinking alcohol when I was 15 (yeah I can only guess how this would sound in a country where you're legally prohibited from alcohol consumption until age 21).

I felt that my future would go down the wrong path if I continued drinking with my "friends", so I used a temporary medical condition as alibi for the others as well as myself to never drink again. Seven years of not drinking at all followed, then I carefully started again in a civilized manner on fitting occasions. Alcohol is a social lubricant that's just way too useful to not be exploited.

So (un)fortunately I can't empathize with your opium problem from the experience of a full-blown addiction, but only from the experience of having little self-control in general.