Ya Wen, a Chinese girl who was hurt in a traffic accident, smokes cigarettes and drinks beer as therapy.

This three-year-old turned to booze and nicotine to recover from a horrific road traffic accident.

Chinese toddler Ya Wen started downing pints of beer and smoking up to a pack a day after she was struck by a speeding van and spent five days in a coma, her parents told the Yangcheng Evening Post.

"She likes drinking," her mother Gao Wen said.

"Three glasses of beer is no problem to her."

Gao Wen said her daughter's personality changed dramatically and she started acting like an adult shortly after leaving the hospital.

First she was busted hiding in the toilet smoking her dad's cigarettes, then the girl turned to stealing them from a local store - before the owner let her have them on credit.

"The first time I found her smoking was in the toilet," her mother said.

"Before that I often saw cigarette butts in the toilet but thought they were my husband's, until I saw my daughter smoking there."

The store owner said he assumed the child was buying the butts for dear old dad, adding that the child would take up to two packs away at a time.

The girl has been addicted to smoking for a year now and has also changed her preference in clothes, the family said.

"She only likes boy's clothes," Wen's mother said.

"If we don't buy them for her, she cries in protest."

The family lives in a shelter in Huizhou, China, and collect and sell garbage for cash.

Wen's father recently gave up the smokes to set a good example for his child but she still cries for them whenever they are visible. 

Meanwhile, a chain-smoking toddler in Indonesia who threw tantrums if he did not have 40 cigarettes a day has managed to curb his addiction, by cutting down to just 15 a day.

Two-year-old Ardi Rizal took up the habit when he was 18 months old.

"He's totally addicted," Ardi's 26-year-old mother, Diana, said recently.

"If he doesn't get cigarettes, he gets angry and screams and batters his head against the wall. He tells me he feels dizzy and sick." 

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/06/09/2010-06-09_chinese_toddler_ya_wen_smokes_drinks_beer_as_therapy_from_traffic_accident_injur.html#ixzz0qO2LLs46