I started when I was 12. I'd just moved house and schools, from the countryside to a very well heeled town and all the girls in my year seemed about 4 years older than me. I was incredibly socially awkward and lonely and here was a way of making friends. Smoking comes with all sorts of mini-rituals, there's always something to do with your hands. It makes it easy to initiate conversations - 'got a light?', 'want a light?' 'want a fag?' (you don't hear that one so much these days because it's so expensive!) and of course you're in a little 'gang' and it made me feel a bit more grown up. I also found the effects of nicotine helped. It made me feel a bit calmer, a bit more confident, a bit more focused.
By the time I was 15 I was completely hooked. I skipped lunch to spend the money on fags, I stole fags, I stole money to buy fags. When I started work I went up to 20 a day and stayed there for over 3 decades.
Over the years I tried cold turkey, gum, patches, lozenges, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, Allen Carr, NHS services, several quite strange self help books, crystal fucking healing ... I didn't try Champix because I have a history of MH issues.
The only thing that has worked for me is vaping. This October it'll be 4 years since I quit. Not smoking for 4 years hasn't happened since I was a child. TBH, I barely managed 4 months in all that time.
I think the reasons vaping works for me is that all the things I got from smoking are still there. There's loads of little rituals, something to do with your hands, conversation starters, nicotine.
I've got no intention of giving up nicotine now I've found a way to take it that's not going to cause serious harm. I work better on nicotine like I work better on caffeine 
I hate it when people slag off other methods of quitting than the one that worked for them, or imply their method is the only way. Everyone's different and people have a multitude of reasons for smoking. We need all the methods and no single one is right for everybody. We need enough methods that smokers still have another thing to try so they keep trying. Sometimes it doesn't matter what method you use it's just a matter of trying something when your head happens to be in the right place. I could say a lot about Allen Carr but I don't tend to because I recognise it does work for a lot of people.
Quitting is incredibly tough for lots of people. Just because you found it easy, doesn't mean everybody does. Just because your relative did it, it doesn't follow that 'if she can, everybody can'. People smoke their legs off and their teeth out and their lungs up. Half of long term smokers smoke themselves to death.
Smoking tends to run in families so probably most of us have lost someone or have someone close who is very unwell. Non-smokers trying to shock us with grave tales of their relatives' untimely and painful deaths - it doesn't work because this isn't unusual for smokers and ex smokers. This is a fairly normal way for our relatives to die.