why do people who smoke and drink heavily sometimes outlive heathy people?

Question

So people who exercise, eat healthy and never touch drugs or excess of any kind and do all they can to stay fit only to die so soon into their lives?

But then you have people who drink, smoke and do drugs in massive amounts for ages but they last for a long time all things considered and sometimes way older then other average people

This isn’t the case for all of them but it happens enough to be noticed

So how and why does this happen?

Thanks for reading and have a nice day

In: Other

Answer 1

Genetics play a huge role. Various vices burning through your lifespan isn’t as huge a deal when your organs grant you an abnormally long lifespan to start with. You can have people who might “default” live to 120 shorten their lives by 25% with alcohol and cigarettes and still live to 90. Someone who might “default” to 50 can extend their life 50% with diet and exercise and still only make 75.   

These are just arbitrary numbers to make the point, of course. Unfortunately, not everyone is born equal.