Smoking; The Deadly Habit
by: Mackenzie Mayfield
Smoking has become a danger that is available for all ages. Secondhand smoke can damage anyone form infants to the elderly and has done so for many years. Even though you have to be eighteen to buy cigarettes, that doesn't stop younger people from getting them, they beg older people to buy them or even steal them from other users which can cause harm not only to the user, but to the supplier as well due to jail time.
Health risks are a major factor that come along with smoking that should make you want to quit. Cigarettes cause over 480,000 deaths each year in the U.S. alone. Smoking damages nearly every organ of the body and causes many diseases as well as reduces the health of smokers in general. Just one year after quitting smoking, your risk for a heart attack drops sharply, reason enough to quit.
Costs of cigarettes alone should be enough of a reason to quit. You waist up to $1,800 a year by smoking a pack a day and up to $200,000 in one lifetime. Not only do smokers pay for their packs but they also pay more for insurance, teeth whitening, and dry cleaning as well as lose money on the resale of cars and homes. It's cost effective and unnecessary.
In an effort to protect the heath of nonsmokers, many states have passed laws outlawing smoking in public places such as restaurants, bars, airplanes, and offices.Yet there are still many people who cant escape secondhand smoke, especially the children of smokers, who regularly breathe in the toxic fumes from their parents cigarettes.
Smoking causes your personal appearance and health to be drastically changed in an appalling way. Your finger nails, skin and especially teeth, become a shade of yellow which is not pleasing. Users breath smells bad as well as their regular body odor. Smoking causes a discomfort to nonsmokers which makes them turn the other way from you. Its unpleasing and unwanted.
Quitting is harder than starting. Many people believe they are not addicted and can just stop whenever needed but that is not the case. Most people who try to quite do not succeed the first or even third time. In order to quit, you need to slowly use less and less and find other alternatives to keep your mind busy and not think about cigarettes. It requires strong family support and the willingness or drive to follow through.
Many people say they smoke to relieve stress but in reality it causes stress. Constant worry over money to buy cigarettes, the sudden urge to leave wherever you are to smoke, the dread of not having enough to smoke. It builds up and causes more harm. There are many healthy alternatives to smoking which can include bike riding, collecting, art, music, etc. All of these can relieve or reduce stress without causing harm to you or people around you.
No one would buy a toy for their child that says it may cause cancer so why would you buy cigarettes with a label on it that says it kills? Cigarettes are so deadly that they are required to label them directly on the box as dangerous. You are directly putting toxins into your body, and everyone's around you, and you enjoy it. Stop killing yourself and others and just quit.
A 2006 surgeon general's report confirmed that secondhand smoking can kill, and it concluded that there is no amount of exposure to secondhand smoke that is safe. Exposure to the smoke causes nearly 50,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. Every time you light a cigarette, your helping to kill thousands of people.
Smoking can sometimes cause a release of stress and that is one reason many people rely on it but there are many healthy alternatives such as meditation or even physical exercise. You get addicted to the toxins that slowly kill your body and feel as though you cant live without it so you don't try anything else. That is not the case. Trying an alternative solution can and will save your life.