Part of me wishes I hadn't started but I know why and how I started.
I remember having a friend who I thought was really cool and when I was 13/14 she used to give me puffs of her fags and show me how to do it properly because I wanted to be able to have a puff off a joint if it was offered to me without coughing my guts up and embarassing myself.
Then when I was 16 I had a boyfriend who smoked and he liked it when I lit them for him and then I had one or two whole ones and then one time I was at a wedding and a girl I knew who was a bit of a social smoker like myself wanted to go halves on a pack with me (they only had 20s in the pub). I was soon buying them myself as I got served in a few places.
So there, thats honesty.
I do wish I hadn't started because it's so expensive and now my mum smokes again thanks to my bad influence which is the bit I hate the most because if she gets cancer it will be my fault. I want her to give up and I think she will when I go to uni in september but it's become like a social thing that we do together in our late night mother-daughter time (which may sound a little bit messed up to non smokers) but yeah I don't think we can quit together. It's horrible because I love smoking but I hate her smoking. I hate that my fear of losing the person I love the most is over run by my stupid, expensive, killer addiction that whispers into my ear "you can give up another time" "a couple more won't make any difference" etc.
I definitely wouldn't encourage anyone to start smoking.