I find it easier to leave humiliated than to end up in a hospital.

Yup, being humilated generally requires *way* fewer stitches!!

Oh, and I lost one good friend due to a drunk driver, and have another friend who lost a parent...

On the positive side, nobody I know has died or ended up in a hospital as a result of second hand smoke. So right now I actually do consider the effects of drinking on others more dangerous than second-hand smoke. Maybe the balance will change as I get older, although I hope not. Now I have to find that piece of wood to knock on.

Don't knock too hard. No way do I want to minimize the tragedies that result from drunk driving, and, yes, I can believe that it would be seen as a more immediate problem in the 20s and 30s given the statistics.

On average, bad smoking-related things like emphysema/COPD generally won't kick in until later, but that isn't an absolute. I remember a guy -- 27? 28? -- who wandered into our ER complaining of a persistent chest cold and the sad look on the radiologist's face (looking at the chest X-ray) that essentially said "This poor bastard's [censored]." He was. The whole bell curve thing.