Letters to the Editor
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there is no way that anyone can be less physically healthy overall after they quit smoking
in very very rare cases it may be possible for someone to have a condition which to them is more unpleasant than what would have happened to them if they had not quit.
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The passive smoking question really does make a difference to an individual's choices - if proven, no caring person would inflict it on others. If not true - then it's my body.
This is the reason why the issue has been so contentious and why it could never have been resolved as it has been if the evidence were not absolutely conclusive.
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there's no evidence for evolution or global warming either
free republicans and their ilk ask for it all the time, and nobody EVER provides them with REAL evidence.
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For the very last time
One link. Just one.
I'm done - this is exactly what I'm talking about.
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try the American Lung Association
then
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Glad i quit years ago
I get way more exercise now, can actually hike miles up steep mountains, have much better energy levels and metabolism, am much less worried about cancer and other truly horrible ways to die, and i don't stink like an ashtray.
Smokers, FYI: you do stink. We all did.
Smokers who sweat are an especially stinky combination.
When everybody smokes nobody notices, but these days, a lot of people notice.
Anyways, it's possible I did permanent damage from smoking for about 13 years. I may have whacked my sinuses because I developed allergies right after quitting, though maybe smoking just suppressed them. I've heard similar stories from others. But it was either allergies or a shitload of medical problems that totally kill quality of life. I chose allergies, no contest.
Another thing I realized after quitting: remember how you used to see pretty healthy, thin, young people smoking in large numbers and think "well if they're all smoking, how bad can it be?" which made it easy to enjoy another, or chain all night at the club.
The thing is, now that so many young people have quit, and mainly the fat unhealthy slobs still smoke, you see all those young, slim, healthy people are even more healthy than before. The young, thin, otherwise healthy smokers do have worse skin and other health issues.
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blood pressure and exercise euphoria
The way to lower BP is exercise, particularly "calm" exercises. They're good for the cardio vascular, and also lower stress and induce euphoria.
Once you're comfortable with it, exercise is a great high, gets the dopamine flowing in a big way. Seriously. Like you'd done drugs, only it's just your body's own dopamine production.
For me hiking in beautiful nature settings really does the trick, producing euphoria every time. By the end of a long nature hike, I'm high as a kite. City exercise, meh... exercise is still there but not the same, even though I'm a devout city dweller and live in one of the more beautiful cities. Biking and other exercises are good, but require a lot of twitch responses, and don't have the same relaxing, therapeutic, euphoria quality imo.
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wow, anon
I am surprised you couldn't come up with something, secondhand-wise. However, irrespective of health concerns, breathing the smoke from someone else's cig can be annoying and certainly smokers don't have a "right" to do that.
And why is tossing a butt to the ground not littering? That's what bugs me. cigarette butt everywhere in front of the entranceways of buildings. Ugh.
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for -- anon, 00:11:52 2007
i don't believe anyone has said you could be physically worse long term, though there are long-term effects. and most people are glad that they've quit. HOWEVER, if you've never had to suffer the not-always-common side effects of quitting then you really can't make blanket statements like that.
and just for kicks, why not join me for my next colonoscopy. you'll see pics of my colon filled with sores. sores that can turn into colon cancer. then you and the doctors in the suite can talk about why this is true.
so till you've been writhing on the floor in pain--and still not grabbing a pack of cigs which would make said writhing person feel better in less than a day--try to have just a tad of compassion for those of us who have suffered side effects.
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Mean
I am two years off cigarettes and I am glad I finally quit. I also miss it like crazy but will not go back.
What I hate is when something becomes so demonized that it becomes okay for people to be mean about it. (obesity and smoking are recent targets) When my mom found out she had cancer the first question everyone asked me was if she smoked. (she didn't). You know, so they could decide whether she DESERVED her cancer or not. People feel free to dispense judgment and superiority without ever thinking about how that person's illness and death, regardless of the cause, will effect that person's loved ones. Possiby devestate their lives, even. Its mean, judgmental and in my opinion, evidence of why this country is fucked. only the truly demented can lack sympathy for someone and their family suffering from cancer.
PS - and apparently its okay to wish pinkeye on them, too, but that isn't far off from what I am saying.
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You gotta do it
Rebecca, way to go. I failed at quitting repeatedly (smoked from age 14 to age 29) even though I didn't experience nearly the misery you're going through. I finally succeeded when I got pregnant, but my cravings continued for years.
Freedom from the self-loathing for a habit I knew I couldn't justify was a great reward. Look at how crazy these posters have to get in order to justify their addiction!
A few nights ago I stayed at the house of one of my few remaining friends who smokes, with her family, in her house. (Most smokers I know these days decline to pollute their own houses.) I woke up utterly repelled by the stale tobacco smoke permeating her house. It was stomach turning - I spent some time in the bathroom, actually ill.
Smokers, you have to know that this is how you, your houses and your cars smell to the rest of us. You are grossing out the people around you. Some of them are around you because they have no choice. Others are putting their own comfort aside out of affection for you.
And argue all day about the obvious harm caused by second hand smoke. You can do the research yourself and discover enough reasons to prevent the perceived "right" of a minority to destroy the comfort of the majority. Ask any non-smoking friend how they feel after an hour or two in a smoke-filled bar. Headaches, nausea, rebellious sinuses, persisting malaise, often diarrhea.
I have many friends who are musicians and I enjoy watching them perform in clubs. But even my smoking friends who love me, thrilled to be in a smoke-allowing social venue, will happily chain me into leaving early. As a former smoker I try to remember the addiction that makes them do this and not take it personally, which would hurt. As with all addictions, they love their cigarettes more than anything or anyone else.
My in-laws loved my asthmatic baby, but loved the cigarettes they smoked in her presence more. They paid the price in not getting to have her in their house, but nicotine trumps love even in the presence of a beautiful child you've seen in an oxygen tent.
I have a co-worker, a lovely woman who watched her own sister suffocate from lung cancer, lying in a hospital bed begging "Please don't let me die." I see her at clockwork intervals, away from her desk smoking outside. Surrounded by a yard full of cigarette butts and doing her part to create a noxious cloud through which everyone entering/exiting the building must pass.
Smokers, this addiction makes decent people irrational and rude. You're a kinder, more ethical person than you appear to be, but your addiction is making you violate your own values regarding how you treat others. It's time to stop.