>>Same thing. Both can decide to quit<<
Not really. There is a true chemical dependency to nicotine as there is a true chemical dependency to cocaine.
One would not do a surgery this big on a cocaine addict, why consider it for a nicotine addict?
Habits are sometimes good. Eating right and exercise are good habits. The way you write your name or put your clothes into the closet are habits. There are not chemicals in your body that have become dependent on that. But putting nicotine into your body depleats that body of valuable nutrients. They should have worked on the addiction before doing the surgery. Or picked someone else.
However, people have the capacity to stop, at their own choosing, either a bad habit or a chemical habit.
I'm sure this woman quit smoking after her accident, because she didn't have a mouth.
The fact that she started doing it again means she is just stupid, not addicted. The amount of time that had gone by between her accident and now is significant, and certainly well past the nicotine withdrawal phase.
If she doesn't care, then I certainly don't.
My point, and I suppose it was rather off topic, is that people act like and addiction is some evil monster over which an individual has no control. "I can't help but get drunk everyday, I'm an alcoholic." Then one day, they choose to quit.
Continuing to submit to an addiction is a personal weakness, and it is no disease.
People with cancer can't just decide to not have cancer anymore. That is a disease.