February 26, 2011

Sooooooo, I wanted to include a link to something Craig Ferguson rambled on about last night, but I couldn't find it... so... this is what you get instead: Nothing. Sorry.


Tonight my blog is going to touch on something that is extremely personal to me for more than one reason. I want to talk about smoking. Earlier today I posted a question to people on my FB page: How long have you smoked and how did you quit?

I knew the answer that I wanted to hear, but I rarely get the response I am expecting when I pose questions to the public. This time, however, was surprisingly different. Before I go into it all, lets look at some statistics:

*About 15 billion cigarettes are sold daily - or 10 million every minute. Cigarettes cause more than one in five American deaths. Smoking related-diseases kill one in 10 adults globally, or cause four million deaths. (1)

*If you smoke around you children they can inhale the equivalent of 102 packs of cigarettes by age 5.

You know, I have researched this for days and I think I am going to stop with the facts now. We all know what smoking does to a person. Lung, mouth, vocal, throat, stomach and many more cancers are developed from smoking. We know that COPD and pneumonia can be caused and irritated by smoking. We know all these things, yet people keep lighting up, every day.

It bothers me that they seem to want to kill themselves, but it really pisses me off that they don't seem to take into consideration the health of others. I think this stems from childhood. I was born with a severe congenital heart defect. Over the years I have had to see my cardiologist at least every six months for check ups and I have had open heart surgery. As a kid I remember my cardiologist (every six months) begging my dad to stop smoking. If not for himself, then for the sake of the (two) children he had whom had serious heart defects. My dad smoked for almost 20 years after that, in the house/car and with the windows closed and his children present. Every time I see someone light up a cigarette, I hear them "say", I don't care about my health and I certainly don't care about anyone around me.

There have been many serious health conditions linked to second hand smoke. Some studies have even said that second hand smoke may be more dangerous than actually smoking, because the smoker has a filter between him and the smoke that others are not privileged with.

I had a great friend die a tragic and uncomfortable death from lung cancer. He hadn't smoked a cigarette in his life, but he lived in a third world nation where everyone smokes because it is cool. He didn't have to die. Oh, by the way, he was 23. These are just a couple of reasons why this is a personal matter in my life. There are other reasons, but they are a bit more personal than I am willing to discuss at the moment.

I have to ask you, how can any person who has been raise in my generation or thereafter choose to smoke? You know the facts. Save your life and save a million others. Put the cigarettes down. I know its hard. I smoked myself as a (extremely stupid) teen. I know that every time you go to a gas station for the rest of your life, those stupid things will try to talk to you. I know. I also know that you can quit.

Remember the FB question I asked? I got a few replies. Do you know how they stopped smoking after all the other things they tried failed? Every single one of them quit cold turkey. And it worked. As Craig Ferguson says, "Smoking is an addiction. So, the first step is to quit putting the drug in your body. The second step is to deal with the addiction."

You can do it.

(1) www.readytoquit.com