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3 years, 4 months ago

Should I quit smoking?

The fact is I love smoking, though I am not much of a smoker..some 3-4 cigarettes a day and am not addicted. And I actually believe it stimulates my creativity. But, the ethical dilemma :) keeps pulling me down. What are the hard facts about smoking? Can smoking be actually dangerous even with 3-4 a day?
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bbrookin | 3 years, 4 months ago
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I'm guessing you already have the 'hard facts' - the ones on the side of the package. Instead, I'll give you my own experience of the benefits of quitting.
I smoked for several years in much the same as you. Three to six cigarettes a day, usually at times of the day when I wanted to get started or have a moment of reflection. I loved coffee, cigarettes, and conversation in the morning. I loved "cocktail hour" with cigarettes and conversation in the evening. My smoking wasn't so much a physical addiction as a movement addiction - something to do with my hands. So why quit?
  • I got tired of smelling like cigarettes. When I caught a cold, the smell really hit me afterward until my nose got used to the smell again. Then it hit me - I bet non-smokers think I smell like this pretty much all the time! And non-smokers are now 75% - 80% of the American Population, depending on your source. (http://tinyurl.com/2nazaq)
  • I started getting into good foods, and smoking interfered with my taste. We started making our own beer and chinese food to begin with, and have continued to become serious cooks. The taste of good food and drink are much better after quitting. 
  • I started martial arts, which required better fitness level and breathing. Although I wasn't addicted to smoking, I could feel the effect it had on my lungs. This got better relatively quickly, by the way.
  • Then there was the smoke break at work. In one of my jobs, smokers have a real edge by taking a break every 90 minutes or so at the break table outside. That edge consists of informal meetings where the politics of the organization and backstory are shared. I decided not to give this up. I continued to go out when I needed a break, as it was discriminatory to me NOT to allow non-smokers this advantage. I was questioned on this once, when a supervisor observed "You don't smoke!" I replied "I can start..." and reached to borrow a cigarette. She said "NO!" and that was the end of it.
So, in summary, I can breathe deeply and smell almost unusually well (maybe I didn't know what I was missing before). Taste dramatically improved, probably a little more slowly than breathing. My house, car, and clothing don't reek of cigarettes. I still have the benefits of the break, and not the stigma of being a smoker. Major win!
Oh, and then there was the expense. I applied the cost of cigarettes to other things - in my case, clothes - directly. So every cigarette not smoked was clothing on my back, literally. With the cost of cigarettes today, that would be a big chunk of change!

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jennhollowell | 3 years, 4 months ago
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This question hits me personaly because I've lost people close to my from smoking:

  • I lost my grandfather to emphazima when I was fourteen - he was seventy-five.  His life would've been longer and he would've enjoyed it more had he not smoked.  All of my life, I remember him hacking and coughing all the time.
  • I lost my favorite uncle in 2005 to smoking - he only had 20% of his lung capacity when he passed away in his 60's.
  • We lost a close family friend (he was my fiance's uncle) to lung cancer yesterday - he was seventy-one.  He's another that would've had a longer life had it not been for smoking.

I smoked from age eleven to age twenty-two and quit cold turkey when I decided to have children.  I became a mother two years later and I don't miss smoking at all.  As soon as I learned the truth behind the cause of my Grandfather's death (which was sheltered from me for years), it solidified and added validation to my decision.

I've been trying to help my friends and family quit ever since I smoked my last cigarette in 1997.  If I can do it, anyone can

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philipy | 3 years, 4 months ago Report

Here is a high quality medical study from Norway looking at the risks of smoking 1-4 cigarettes a day. (From a website of the British Medical Journal.)

http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/14/5/315

The punch line:

"In men and women smoking 1–4 cigarettes per day, there was a distinct increase in risk of death from ischaemic heart disease and from all causes. For ischaemic heart disease, the steepest increase was in both sexes between 0 and 1–4 cigarettes per day. Above this level, the slope was less pronounced."

i.e Yes, your risk is increased. And your heart disease risk increases more going from zero to one a day than it does going from four to five a day.

This is also interesting:

http://www.medindia.net/patients/calculators/ciger_smoke.asp

It calculates how many days on average you'd have taken off your life by smoking X number of cigs for Y years. Looks like every year you smoke 4 a day would reduce your life expectancy by a couple of weeks.

Of course that doesn't so much mean you actually lose a couple of weeks, but that you have a 4% higher chance of losing a year of your life. And if you smoke 4 a day for 10 years, that's maybe a 30% chance of losing a year of your life, 5% chance of losing 5 years of life etc.

I have no idea what this is based on, but the site looks very reputable, headed up by leading Indian doctors. And perhaps tellingly it is aimed at health professionals as well as lay people, so they probably have to know what they are talking about.

Also watch this YouTube clip:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=w87SZvhopco

I saw the whole programme this clip comes from. I don't know if the info is in the clip, but there was a very compelling statement in it:

Smoking kills 50% of smokers eventually. The only reason it doesn't kill the other 50% is that something else gets them first.

jennhollowell's Avatar
jennhollowell | 3 years, 4 months ago Report

I'm sorry - I didn't mean to scare you! Sometimes reality is the best educational tool, though. I really hope it helped! :-)

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theonlin | 3 years, 4 months ago Report

you scare me.. but thanks.. i need this.. :)

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ssmacd | 3 years, 4 months ago
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The risk of lung cancer increases 100% for each cigarette you smoke.  So 3-4 cigarettes a day would mean you are 3-4 times more likely to get lung cancer than a non-smoker.

Is that a risk you're willing to take?

Even if you're willing to accept it for yourself, there are risks to others from both second and Third hand Smoke.

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nissimziv | 3 years ago
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easyeboy | 3 years, 4 months ago
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Yes, you should quit smoking.  Be sure to watch the video.Here are a bunch of reasons why:

According to someone who has smoked for 25 years, there are a lot of symptoms and side affects. Smokers generally speaking do not live as long as non smokers who have the same health habits other than smoking. You can suffer from lung cancer, emphysema, bad breath, tobacco stained teeth, and more.

These symptoms include:

1. A pressure, heaviness, and often pain in my lungs in the morning.

2. Morning cough.

3. Loss of my singing voice.

4. Breathlessness in my reading voice.

5. Unpleasant irritation of the mucous membranes of my mouth.

6. General tiredness and loss of energy.

7. Headaches.

8. I realize that I need to take naps to combat the tiredness I feel because my body has to process all the poisons that cigs have.

9. Cigarette hangovers after late nights out.

10. The need to exercise early in the day, before having smoked a lot.

11. Waking up at night coughing or with tickles in my throat.

Psychological Reasons to Quit Smoking:

1. Complete self-hate and loss of self-esteem.

2. A constant feeling of guilt at what I am doing to my body and the consequences that my smoking might have on my children, i.e. the care they might need to give me later in life.
videos:

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darth continent | 3 years, 4 months ago
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Yes, you definitely should.
source(s):
Was at the local hospice when my mother-in-law, a smoker for 20+ years, finally succumbed to cancer which started in the lung and spread to the breast and from there went on to end her life.

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