7 steps on quit smoking - Part 1

Learn about Smoking And How You Or Your Loved One Can Quit In 7 Days!

This can be for you or it can be for a friend that you are trying to assist in stop smoking. It is a great tool and will help if it is consistently done.


To Purchase The American Lung Association 7 Steps to a Smoke-Free Life NOW, please go to www.livingvictoriously.biz and send a request via the contact form.

What is Tobacco?

Tobacco is a green, leafy plant that is grown in warm climates. After it is picked, it is dried, ground up, and used in different ways. It can be smoked in a cigarette, pipe, or cigar. It can be chewed (called smokeless tobacco or chewing tobacco) or sniffed through the nose (called snuff).

Nicotine is one of the more than 4,000 chemicals in cigarettes and its smoke. It is the chemical that makes tobacco addictive or habit forming. Once we smoke, chew, or sniff tobacco, nicotine goes into our bloodstream, and our body wants more. The nicotine in tobacco makes it a drug. This means that when we use tobacco, it changes our body in some way. Because nicotine is a stimulant, it speeds up the nervous system, so we feel like we have more energy. It also makes the heart beat faster and raises blood pressure.


What Is So Bad About Smoking Anyway?

Smoking causes cancer, heart disease and chronic lung disease. It kills hundreds of thousands of people in this country every year and is the single most preventable cause of early death in the world. Passive smoking is responsible for hundreds deaths also even though the person never picked up a cigarette. Smoking is the biggest avoidable risk factor for cancer. It causes nine out of ten cases of lung cancer, and is also a risk factor for cancer of the bladder, kidney, cervix, throat (pharynx and larynx), mouth, oesophagus (foodpipe), pancreas and stomach and for some types of leukaemia (cancer of the blood).

So, What Is In Cigarette Smoke That Is So Dangerous And Causes Cancer? and How Does Smoking Cause Cancer?

Cigarette smoke is packed full of roughly 4000 compounds, many of which are toxic and can cause damage to our cells. Some are carcinogenic (cancer-causing). The three main ingredients of cigarette smoke are:

Nicotine
Carbon monoxide
Tar

Nicotine is not carcinogenic. It doesn't cause cancer. But it is a highly addictive and very fast-acting drug. Once inhaled, nicotine reaches the brain in less than 15 seconds. Most smokers are addicted to nicotine and crave cigarettes to feed their addiction. This is the key ingredient that keeps people buying cigarettes and keeps the tobacco companies in business.

Carbon Monoxide is a tasteless, odourless poisonous gas. It is taken up by the bloodstream quickly and impairs the smoker's breathing. The gas is also emitted by car exhausts, faulty boilers and fires and is very dangerous in badly ventilated spaces. Inhaling too much carbon monoxide causes coma and death by asphyxiation.

Tar is a substance made up of various chemicals, many of which are known to cause cancer. Around 70 per cent of the tar in cigarettes is deposited in the smoker's lungs.


Other Familiar Chemicals in Cigarettes:

Carbon Monoxide - car exhaust
Benzene - a cancer-causing agent used in the production of fuel and chemicals
Nicotine - bug sprays
Tar - material to make roads
Arsenic - rat poison
Ammonia - cleaning products
Hydrogen Cyanide - gas chamber poison
Cyanide - deadly poison
Acetone - nail polish remover
Butane - cigarette lighter fluid
DDT - insecticides
Formaldehyde - A known carcinogen to preserve dead bodies
sulfuric acid car batteries
Cadmium - a very poisonous chemical that can cause liver, kidney and brain damage, used to recharge batteries
Freon - damages earth's ozone layer
Geranic Acid - a fragrance
Methoprene - a pesticide
Maltitol - a sweetener not permitted to be used in foods in the U.S.
Sources: Dr. Joel Dunnington, Tobacco Almanac, Revised, May 1993.

What Are The Risks?

Tobacco smoking has no safe level of use. It is the only consumer product that kills a high proportion of those who use it in the way intended by the manufacturers. Overall, one in two smokers (smoking 20 per day from age 18) will die from their habit, half of them in middle age.

The risk of getting lung cancer from smoking is directly related to the number of cigarettes smoked. The higher the consumption, the higher the risk.is highly dependent on how long a person has smoked. So smoking 1 packet a day for 40 years is much more hazardous than smoking 2 packets a day for 20 years. It is drastically reduced by quitting. Smokers who stop before the age of 35 have a life expectancy not significantly different from non-smokers. Even stopping in middle age has great benefits. It is halved by staying off cigarettes for ten years. The longer you don't smoke, the more you lower your risk.

Giving Up Smoking

It is never too late to quit smoking, although the sooner you quit the greater the long-term benefits for your health. There are also instant benefits to be had from giving up smoking, like improvements in your breathing. Also, your sense of smell and taste will improve and skin problems may clear up.

The physical craving for a cigarette can disappear as soon as one week after giving up. But the psychological cravings may last for much longer.

Join me again at http://www.livingvictoriously.biz as we go over "Why Do You Smoke". We will provide a sheet to test yourself or the loved one that smokes.