Friday, December 9, 2011

Cigaretts !!

 My husband used to smoke, and I hated the fact of him smoking and smelling like cigarettes. I didnt know how to help him to stop, I felt helpless. I started educating my self on smoking, even wrote few papers for my English class. I got a good grade, only for him it didnt do much... but the last paper that I wrote really DID HELP HIM. It took him a while but I am happy to say HE QUIT. HE is not consuming a poison anymore!
 Anyways, here is my paper, hope someone also finds it 
useful.


March 16, 2010



Dark Cloud of Smoke: Cigarettes
      Have you tried smoking? Did you know that cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, aids, homicide, and illegal drugs combined? Estimated 440, 00 people in America die every year, caused on smoking-related diseases. Can you imagine a graveyard of that many people? Most people who smoke wish they didn't, but they live in denial about what cigarettes are doing to them.
From my researching and my daily life I have come to conclusion that people should stop smoking because it has many horrible effects on them and people around them.
       Burning tobacco produces more than 4,000 chemicals. Some of these chemicals can make normal cells change into cancer cells. Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths in both men and women in the United States. When smoking your lungs age faster and get destroyed .Would you rather enjoy healthy lugs that can breathe, or nasty black ones that block Oxygen and causes terrible diseases? When lung tissue is destroyed, the number of air spaces and blood vessels in the lungs decrease so less oxygen is carried to your body. Smoking cigarettes causes many changes in your lungs and airways. Some changes are sudden, last a short time and other changes happen slowly; they are chronic and last a long time. These are some of the changes that UPMC ( University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, 2003) talks about: The cells that produce mucus in lungs and airways grow in size and number which results in increasing thicker amount of mucus. Smoking also reduces the number of cilia which are tiny hairs that clean your lungs and protect against infection. Your lungs and airways have more mucus, and the mucus is not cleaned out well, so it stays in your airway, clogs them and makes you cough. This extra mucus can easily get infected. Your lungs and airways get irritated and inflamed. They become narrow and reduce the air flow. According to Canadian Lung Association 2010, signs of lung damage, which most of smokers ignore are: Feeling out of breath when walking up a short flight of stairs, coughing, spitting up mucous and repeat chest infections.  Even one or two cigarettes cause irritation and coughing. The more you smoke and the longer you smoke, the greater your risk of lung cancer is.  It accounts for approximately 32 percent of cancer deaths in men and 25 percent in women. Man who smoke one pack a day increase their risk 10 times compared with non-smokers. ( Canadian Lung Association,  lung.ca) 
      When you are smoking, you are not just affecting your own health, but also a health of others. When your loved once breathe second-hand smoke, they can get bad affects on lungs and airways, many of which are: Wheezing, chronic cough, increased mucus, shortness of breath, trouble controlling asthma, more lung infections, and pneumonia and lung cancer. (UPMC.com Information for patience)
The EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) reported that 3,000 nonsmoking adults die of diseases caused by exposure to second hand smoke. Second-hand smoke contains more than 4,000 chemical compounds, including carbon monoxide (which poisons the human body), ammonia, formaldehyde, and other poisons. Second hand smoking is also carcinogen. Carcinogen is a substance known to cause cancer. (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center  upmc.com)
Do you have any children? Did you know that children exposed to secondhand smoke at home are more likely to have middle-ear disease and reduced lung function? US infants and children under 18 months of age suffer some 150,000 to 300,000 respiratory tract infections (lung diseases such as pneumonia and bronchitis) every year, leading to 7,500 to 15,000 hospitalizations. Approximately 50-75 percent of children in the United States have detectable levels of cotinine, the breakdown product of nicotine, in their blood. (EPA, US Environmental Protection Agency, smoking-facts.net)
          According to the UPM (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center), smoking causes more than 230,000 deaths from heart and blood vessel disease each year in the United States. This disease is also called cardiovascular disease. Cigarette chemical that affect your heart the most are Nicotine and Carbon monoxide. When Nicotine makes the heart work harder and need more oxygen, the following happens: Heart rate increases, blood pressure increases, arteries narrow, and blood flow decreases. Smoking affects your heart’s arteries which are called coronary arteries. When coronary artery is blocked, you can get chest pain. When a blocked artery deprives part of the heart muscle of blood flow, you get a heart attack. Smoking can also lead to stroke, or brain attack. A stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked, then brain cannot get enough oxygen. This causes brain cells to begin to die, making parts of your body unable to function.
           I have tried smoking cigarettes too, and I found it grouse and a horrible choice. After smoking you can’t wash out your mouth, the smell is too strong. Even if I loved it, it’s not worth it because it affects your body from head to toe. If I don’t take care of my body, who will? Not to mention the money you are spending every single day on cigarettes.
Smoking cigarettes is very bad for your health”, says my husband who smokes. He has been smoking for six years now. His teeth are already darker, and you can smell him across the room. He says that he started smoking with his friends, and got addicted too fast.  “I would like to quit, but I can’t, I tried and failed many times; but I will quit.” He says. (Personal Interview with Adin, March 8, 2010) He said many times that he will quit, but no action. I would do anything I could to help him stop smoking. He is aware of how dangerous cigarettes are. I feel terrible sitting and watching him inhale one after another. “Its stinks” I say. But no, it hurts more!  Knowing that this poison stick can cause so many negative effects on his body, and even kill him, hurts me deep inside every day. Will my son start smoking because his daddy is? I don’t know. All I know is that when people are smoking that little cigarette, it’s slowly smoking their precious lives away. My aunt and grandfather died from smoking. Aunt Aisha got lung cancer, and grandpa coughed his life away. I remember how many nights my grandma stayed awake with him when he couldn’t sleep from coughing all night. I remember the month of Ramadan when we were fasting all day. The first thing to break his fast instead of food was a cigarette. Imagine all day not eating and when you do get a chance to eat you light up a cigarette. As a little girl, I never understood, I still don’t. Many families lose their loved ones over cigarettes; I don’t want to be one of them again.
       If you want to change your life, then change your mind. Quit smoking! It is not a question” if” you will get sick from smoking; the question is “when?”  The first thing you can do is write down the list of what you like about smoking verses what you hate about smoking. Who knows you mid find out many things you hate about it, but didn’t know. Include every single thing you can think of, from the largest, most obvious, to the smallest. At the end of the list write down the reasons why do you want to quit, if you do. When you're done, make a copy to carry with you, use it as motivation. Remember, you will never quit if you keep putting that decision off. Decide today that you will take action. You know that you need to stop, and you ask for help to do so. Talk to your friends, maybe you can find a quit buddy. There are many programs online that helped others to quit.
Susie, a forum moderator (quitsmoking.about.com), who gave up smoking, gives a great advice to one woman who is trying to quit smoking, but can’t stop thinking about cigarettes. She says that when you're a smoker, your body will begin to "need" another cigarette within 10 to 20 minutes of finishing the last one, and you probably start thinking about the next one within about a minute after you finished the last one. This is never, ever ending as long as you continue to smoke. So, now that you decided not to smoke and you're early in the quit you may be thinking about smoking as much as you did as a smoker. The “very big” difference is that with each cigarette you don’t smoke, you are reducing the need and desire to smoke another one. And the great news is that eventually you will have no need or desire to smoke, period. It’s also really important for you to lose this thought that you "can't" smoke. Unless someone has you in chains, you're perfectly free to smoke; you're just choosing not to. The more you think about "can't smoke" instead of "choose not to smoke", the harder it is. You think that you're being denied something when you're not. It's also a good thing to try not to think about "forever" just now. It's just too darn overwhelming to think about never smoking again. This, too, will come with time and patience.
Many people have tried quitting, but only some succeeded. You could be one of those who succeed. You know your loved ones want you to quit, it’s up to you to make a right choice .and stay strong in your decision. Everybody will support you and help you. Good luck!

No comments:

Post a Comment