Addiction does come on hard and fast. The day I first woke up sick and broke, my first thought was, "Oh fuck, what have I gotten myself into THIS time?!"
^^ and that had NOTHING to do with society and everything to do with my own personal situation/values... sure, society exacerbates the problem. But believe me, there was already a problem there long before society started to interfere. Addiction is insidious. There's so many facets to it. Who knows why people didn't write about it back then... perhaps it was simply a taboo subject, sort of how beastiality and incest are now. Maybe people didn't write about it because there would have been some sort of huge stigma attached...??
Anyways, OP, I agree with what someone else said. Mostly you just need to give yourself time to start feeling better, but exercising and eating healthy and socializing with friends who don't smoke and etc. will help you feel better a lot faster than if you just sit around feeling miserable about your life. You gotta go out and DO something to make it not seem so miserable!!