interrupting the potential skorne7 posting streak (after he gets his theories in order) to put a more concise, less grand one he had with that blew my mind: before he picked up the constant smoking we see from him, Mullins drank. a lot. it's part of why he smokes that much, actually, an addiction to beat out another addiction is a common method of "getting over" a preexisting dependency in real life. for some its taking less harmful prescriptions instead of things that make one need narcan to not die, or deepdiving into churchgoing, there's even modern instances of marijuana being smoked in place of drinking alcohol.
sure it could very well just be for cool purposes (and it works, nicotine looks cool when you can't smell it or see the negatives of its use play out). but do you know many people with childhoods that can be described like how his is:
with parents that only smoked their lungs to ash? no, his dad was a drinker. it especially helps he grew up with at least two men in his family being military men, and alcoholism is a noted problem with veterans in just about every corner of the world.
