I’ve been flat out busy this past week, so forgive me for this rushed (and late) post. I have a broader post that will go into the data in the post in more detail, but it’ll have to wait another week.
I just want to say something, because The American Cancer Society designated November 15th, 2012 as The Great American Smokeout – a day to encourage an assist smokers to give up smoking. I’m no smoker, so I can’t imagine the difficult giving up somethings as addicting as nicotine, but I wish everyone who tries the very best.
I don’t hate people who smoke, but I hate smoking. Smoking became popular before the consequences were known. Those consequences have been known for decades now, and still cigarettes are for sale. It’s hard to imagine any government allowing the sale of a product that kills so many people.
How many people?
Let’s have a look at some of the statistics. Statistics are what we humans use when we want to avoid the awful facts, they blunt the tragedy behind each terrible loss, each family left behind.
These numbers are for the USA alone, taken from the American Cancer Society’s 2012 report, and rounded to the nearest ten thousand.
- Every year 450,000 people die of smoking related diseases.
- An additional 50,000 people die of disease related to second hand smoke.
- That’s 1 out of every five deaths.
- If you smoke, you have a 50/50 chance of dying of cancer.
- If you switch to a smokeless tobacco product your chances of cancer go up.
- 8,600,000 people suffer from chronic conditions related to smoking, such as bronchitis, emphysema, and cardiovascular diseases. Yes, that’s the right number of zeros – over eight million people.
Some people want to smoke. Fair enough. But some people want to drink a bottle of whiskey and drive, and society doesn’t allow that. Some people want to load up on cocaine to get them through the day, and society doesn’t allow that. So why do we allow the sale of a highly addictive product that results in HALF A MILLION PREMATURE DEATHS EVERY YEAR?
The American Cancer Society has a whole host of resources to help people quit, and you don’t even have to be an American.
I wish everyone attempting to kick the habit the very best of luck, and if you know someone trying to quit, please give them your support.
Please.
Hey, Nigel! Great post, but I’ve got to confess that I almost blahdy-blah-blah-blahed my way through the statistics.
Why? Right you are! [I’m assuming you guessed, because you’re quite the clever man.]
I smoke, but have a plethora of e-cigarettes designed to deliver nicotine via water vapor as I wean myself off nicotine and the hand-to-mouth habit. They work well — when I let them. (Translation: When I use them.)
The good news I organized and charged them all yesterday. It’s time to stop smelling like a smoke-stack.
The crazy thing about nicotine is that it is the hardest thing I’ve ever quit. And, that includes my farewell forever serenade to Vino Blanco nearly 5 years ago. I didn’t think I could handle a life without alcohol, but I’m loving life more without it. BONUS! I am quite popular at parties b/c I’m a go-to gal for designated driving.
It’s simply getting past those initial days, weeks, months and years of SOBER. An acronym I learned in “the rooms” for Son-of-a-Beach Everything’s Real!
I conquered that. I can conquer this.Thanks for the nudge.
Hi Gloria.
I could cry. I have no idea how hard it is to separate yourself from nicotine, but I can sympathize with prying yourself from alcohol. I used to be someone who thought a bottle of vodka was a basic requirement when you returned home from a nights drinking, just to see you off to bed, so to speak.
I really wish you all the best by whatever means you choose to quit. The links have plenty of resources and reading material, but you probably know all that.
How about keeping us updated on your progress (your successes and any setbacks) on your blog? I’d love to be able to help support you 🙂
Cheers!
My mother-in-law smokes heavily and the statistics you cited are all reasons we’ve encouraged her to stop. She won’t. Which is really sad not just for her but also for us and the shorter time we’re likely to have with her.
Hi Marcy.
Everyones’s different and everyone has their own free will. Unfortunately, like so many drugs, nicotine takes away that free will. My father didn’t quit until he couldn’t get out of a chair, then he was completely the other way about smoking.
Cheers
I’m going to ad lib a favourite Bible verse because I can never remember them word for word. Heck, I don’t even remember my kids’ names.
We keep doing what we know we shouldn’t and can’t seem to do the things we know we should.
This week, and in other weeks, that verse has applied to my writing more than anything else, (watching TV, surfing the net, sorting the sock drawer when I should be at my desk).
I had a cigarette, once, turned green, felt sick for three days, never lit up again. I don’t know why I did it when I’d grown up in a fog of smoke, jus t o be cool seems so ridiculous now.
Point is, I never had the battle to quit.
I have had to quit some dietary staples. Eight years ago, I was told I had to take wheat out of my diet. My first thought was, pizza, french bread oozing with butter, cake, muffins, toast with jam, PB with J… I didn’t know how I would cope, our western diet is built around wheat products. But that wasn’t the worst. Removing wheat from my diet meant I had to become a label-reader–an overwhelming thought then, a matter of course now.
Wheat is in everything. Not just the obvious, like chicken noodle soup, but as a thickener in soups that on the surface you wouldn’t immediately think of as having wheat.
So, on that point, I get it. But….
But. My body did not crave wheat the way a smoker’s lungs crave nicotine. Sure, I longed for a gooey apple fritter once in a while, but there were alternatives to choose from that, as I learned to cope without wheat, tasted better.
The best way to quit smoking is to not start.
Good thing I don’t smoke, or I’d have never been able to pen this long-winded comment!
Glad you posted about this, Nigel. How’s the moustache coming?
Your Bible verse comes from Romans 7, where Paul was discussing his inability to do what he knew to be right. Then he asks “Who can save me from this deadly lower nature?” Then he begins chapter 8 with “So then there is no condemnation at all for those of us that are in union with Christ Jesus. For the life-giving power of the Spirit through union with Jesus Christ has set us free from the power of sin and death.” [Williams translation]
I was a hopeless 2 1/2 pack a day smoker and didn’t even slow down as I watched my uncle die of emphysema brought on by smoking. I didn’t have the willpower to make myself quit, but Jesus delivered me from the hold of nicotine. One minute I was a heavy smoker, and the next minute I was a non-smoker. No withdrawal, no desire for a cigarette. That’s an example from my own life of this “life-giving power of the spirit.”
I never knew you smoked, David, but I’m sure glad you quit.
Hi David. I have tried to email you a few times but i think that i lack a working email address.
I am glad that you were able to escape from tobacco. I salute you for it.
Hi Sherry
Hope you saw David located that verse.
I’ve never had to give up nicotine either. My father smoked heavily and the stale smell, burning eyes etc put me off it. The scientist in me just could see the good behind shoving smoke in my lungs either.
Giving up anything is tough, especially when you don’t feel there is a compelling need. Which is probably why many smokers carry on. Not because they don’t understand the stats, but because they feel ok and therefore feel the stats don’t apply to them.
I sympathize with the wheat/gluten problem. I’m a veggie (by choice, I admit) but I have to read everything. Mind you, restraint choices are easy, there’s usually only one or two things on each menu!
Moustache news to come.
Cheers!
Restaurant, restaurant … not restraint! Bloody spell check.
My dad never smoked a cigarette in his life, but he died of COPD (emphysema) due to an inherited enzyme deficiency that progressive scarred his lungs. Most people don’t realize what lung disease really looks like in its end stages.
The emaciated limbs; the helpless heart-rending coughing that nearly tears their weakened bodies apart; the chairs placed all over the house because they need to rest twice on the way to the bathroom; the one-hour timeframe to consume a tiny meal because they have to rest and catch their breath between bites. And the last few wheezing breaths, farther and farther apart until they finally, mercifully cease. It’s a slow, horrible death with years of suffering for both the patient and the family who has to witness it.
If more people knew what it was like, maybe they’d stop smoking. But maybe not. I have no willpower to speak of when it comes to food, and that’s not even a physical addiction. I can’t imagine the strength of will it takes to quit smoking.
I hope some people find it this month.
Hi Diane
You made me cry. Life isn’t kind sometimes, is it. I am really sorry to hear about your father. It is a slow, diabolical way to go. My father went through the same. In his case it was a mercy that lung cancer took him quickly, but it is no mercy really. People shouldn’t be exposed to smoking in the first place.
Bravo to you words, “I hope some people find it this month.” I hope some people do, too.
I have never smoked, not even once. Both of my parents were heavy smokers when I was growing up and I hated it. My mother managed to quit many years ago, but my father developed severe emphysema because of his 2-pack-a-day habit. It took him a stint on a respirator to “quit.” I say “quit” in quotation marks because to this day, he still sneaks cigarettes. It’s awful to see what smoking has done to him. And emphysema is just one of the many awful results of smoking. Heart disease and lung cancer aren’t fun either.
Thank you for this post, Nigel—I know it’s an insanely difficult habit to break, but it’s important for people to at least try.
Hi Madame
I’m glad to hear you’ve never smoked. Me neither. My dad was a heavy smoker and thankfully it turned me right off the idea when I was very young.
Cheers!
“It’s hard to imagine any government allowing the sale of a product that kills so many people.”
Being the grumpy old man in the room allow me to offer a grumpy old man perspective.
A) Tobacco company grows tobacco in Brazil where they are allowed to breed higher nicotine(more addictive) tobacco for export only.
B) Sells highly taxed product to smokers in USA and around the world. Politicians take the tax revenue and “give” it to the public in the form of overpriced low quality “services” administered from buildings named after said “generous” politician.
C) Scientists make daring suggestion that the last sixty years of research and experience indicate that tobacco causes agonizing suffering and death to millions of our citizens and other citizens as well.
D) Faced with the heart braking choice of possibly receiving fewer “campaign donations”, “PAC donations” and “consulting fees” for their spouses and children or addressing the slaughter politicians give long consideration to the dilemma.
E) After long agonizing deliberation lasting upwards of five milliseconds the politician decides that scientists are all stupid lying bastards and then they bravely continue to accept the cash.
G) Teen smokes cigarette.
H) Adult gets cancer and the public (including the patient) pays exorbitant costs to treat them until they die a miserable death.
On the slightly less grim side we can all make a difference by teaching children about the above A-H process and teaching them to not smoke or believe advertising in general. NO child in this world deserves to smoke.
To those that smoke you have my sympathy and my hopes that you will be able to escape from smoking.
Amen.