Building discipline & willpower from scratch

I have been smoking for about 5 years now. I never really 'started' one day, but it just made my day to day life more enjoyable, and it did so consistently, so I never had a reason to stop. Recently, I have read about Buddhism and started breath meditation. This brought attention to my lung capacity and, to be honest, made it difficult to meditate without occasionally 'gasping' for air. All the things I have tried when feeling urges (hot showers, nicotine gum, sleeping, video games, money restraints) don't work for long enough. Most days I create a 'reason' to not smoke, I end up smoking anyway because my mind keeps thinking about things like the validity of the reason, why I need an excuse, etc. Similar to how telling a child to not look at an elephant will rarely work. I have always had an addictive personality, and am now realizing the only reason I did not engage in smoking in the past was mostly because I was addicted to something else. Currently, I am unemployed and though I have enough money to get by, I am still looking for a job so that I have something else to direct my energy towards. All of these workarounds and escapes are tiring. But smoking is worse. Is there a way to build willpower and discipline from scratch? Or is the only escape to find something else to do?