My dear boy, a cigarette is just a cigarette.

Last year my NA friend ate a chocolate which unbeknownst to him contained alcohol. In about five seconds, his thought process followed a spiral from considering that a failure, through a vision of himself - having failed - simply continuing on to glasses of liquor and then, finally, to the conclusion that being such a failure he might as well just start shooting up again.

He didn't.

That's because the difference between addiction and freedom is repeated action. You won't be smoking a cigarette in the future because you're not smoking one now because you choose, and can always choose, to take that action or to take another.

A cigarette is just a cigarette. It's not the destruction of a year and a half of work, it's one day's choice in 550 days' choices. It's 0.65% as important as the rest of that swathe of time. In another year it'll be 0.4% as important. So tomorrow you'll return to choosing differently. Put it down. Move on.

Next semester, you'll have more money in your pocket from your jobs and you'll be able to reapply to university. You're working towards your future, choosing to take sensible action in the whirling storm of uncertainty that life throws at us. I would bet real money that your dad is prouder of you than you can know.

There will be time.