GRAND RAPIDS, MI – While promoting his book about his 35-year battle with heart disease, former Vice President Dick Cheney talked about smoking in the White House and in the Boy Scouts – and the moment that led him to kick the habit.

Free smokes in the White House

Dick Cheney

Tobacco companies used to provide an unlimited supply of free cigarettes to the White House. They came in a white box with gold trim and the presidential seal. If you could light one up using a matchbook from Air Force One, that was “very, very impressive,” Cheney joked.

Smoked-filled rooms truly were filled with smoke, and Cheney said his tobacco habit grew much worse in Washington.

“Nearly everybody smoked,” he said. “That’s what we all did. We learned later on that was a huge problem. At the time, I was young. I was going to live forever.”

First cigarette

Cheney admitted he smoked his first cigarette at 12 – as a Boy Scout. Asked if he got a merit badge for it, he shook his head sheepishly and said, “No.”

Hidden family history

Cheney said he didn’t realize the extent of his family’s history of heart disease until 10 years after his first heart attack. He knew his mother’s dad had died of a heart attack. But he didn’t realize that heart disease ran on both sides of the family until his mother persuaded his father to see a doctor in 1988.

His father ended up undergoing a six-way heart bypass operation, and doctors discovered he had suffered two prior heart attacks and had a “giant aneurysm” in an aorta. After the operation, his father lived another 10 years.

“We had a tremendous family history of heart disease. He just never bothered to tell us about it,” Cheney said.

However, Cheney said lifestyle was a big factor in his heart disease - particularly 20 years of heavy smoking.

“I brought a lot of it on myself,” he said.

Saved by a heart attack

Having a heart attack at 37 “was a stunner,” Cheney said. But it may have saved his life.

After he was wheeled into the emergency room, he ditched the habit completely.

“That heart attack cured me of the desire to smoke cigarettes,” he said.

Related: Dick Cheney discusses brush with death, gratitude for heart transplant donor

Sue Thoms covers health care for MLive/The Grand Rapids Press. Email her at sthoms1@mlive.com or follow her on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.