Smoking Your Health Away

Had you ever taste smoke before? Liked it? Imagine open burning for instance, obviously nobody liked the experience of getting your face, hair, or your whole body covered with stinking smoke smell, neither will you lick and get a good tasting of the puff of smoke passing by, correct? It’s not yummy, just plain disgusting and ‘yucky’.

Okay forget about the open-burning-smoke, what about cigarettes or tobacco kind of smoke? Let’s relate this smoke with that earlier smoke. Both are just the same, stinking smoke, correct? So I take it that your answer will be something like: “No, I won’t touch smoke forever and ever in my whole living life”. If it is so, then good for you. But still we see that there are a lot of smokers around us, inhaling and exhaling smoke like nobody’s business. Hey wait, weren’t that supposed to be stinking smoke? Then how come people are still lighting up? The answer, in one word, is addiction.

Smoking is one of the worst things you can do to your body. Almost everybody knows that smoking can cause bad breath, yellow teeth, smelly clothes, cancer, emphysema (breakdown of lung tissues), heart diseases, cancers, and even lead to death. Smokers know these facts too. Yet they are so addicted to cigarettes because they had become addicted to nicotine, a chemical substance in tobacco, which is the primary material in cigarettes.

Let’s take a look into nicotine. Nicotine is an alkaloid, groups of naturally occurring chemical compounds which mostly contain basic nitrogen atoms. It has the chemical formula of C₁₀H₁₄N₂. These are all basic knowledge. What we are really interested is the properties nicotine possesses. Nicotine is a chemical that gives you that tingly or pleasant feeling, but that feeling only lasts for a little while. You will feel heavenly for a while, about a few seconds, and then reality kicks in. Nicotine is also very addictive, meaning that your body will become so used to it that you will need it to feel normal. It’s hard to quit smoking once you are addicted to nicotine.

So why is it that smoking kills? We know that tobacco contains nicotine, and nicotine is an addictive chemical substance. But what we don’t know is that nicotine is poisonous, it kills in high enough doses. There are no physical needs and reasons for us to start smoking, unlike the body’s need for food, water, sleep, and exercise. In fact, the body is smart and will activate its defense mechanism when it is being poisoned. That is why first-time smokers will always feel pain or burning in the throat and lungs, and some even throw up the first few times they try tobacco.

Nicotine is a slow poison that kills over time. The effects won’t be noticed at first, but it will slowly affect the smoker’s health and wealth over a long period. Health problems such as cardiac diseases, stroke, and cancers are often fatal and will usually affect a smoker only if they persistently smoke for a long-term. Wealth issue is also concerned as tobacco or cigarettes are not cheap. They will burn a hole in your wallet if you are a heavy smoker.

So ladies and gentlemen, if you are a smoker yourself, my utmost humble advice to you is to stop smoking as soon as possible. It is never too late to stop smoking. If you are not a smoker, please do not ever ever try smoking. Remember to avoid second-handed smoke too! (Second-handed smoke is more hazardous than first-hands; you die faster if you inhaled second-handed smoke more.)

Put this in mind: Say NO to smoking! Unless you really want to live ten or twenty years shorter.