Contents
Understand Your Smoking Habit
Reasons to Quit Smoking
How to Get Emotional Support Before Quitting Smoking
How to Get Medical Support Before Quitting Smoking
Alternative Methods for Quitting Smoking
How to Choose a Quit Date
How to Stay Quit
How to Deal with Regression
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Reasons to Quit Smoking
Parents, siblings, coworkers, teachers, and complete strangers have probably lectured you at length on the countless reasons why you should quit smoking. Even though you know these comments are well-meant, they can still be irritating. As you prepare to quit smoking, identify the reasons that are most compelling to you—not to anyone else.
Listing Your Reasons to Quit
To solidify your reasons for wanting to quit smoking, make them into a list that you keep on you at all times. The list can help inspire you to quit. Once you have quit, it will help you resist the urge to smoke whenever you feel it coming on.
Your list should focus on what you care about most. If focusing on the horrible health effects of smoking works for you, great. If it’s more effective for you to fixate on how smoking affects your appearance, the financial cost of smoking, or other social factors, that’s fine too.
Health
The health problems that smoking causes are staggering. In the United States, tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death and disease. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), smoking causes male smokers to lose, on average, 13.2 years of life expectancy and female smokers to lose, on average, 14.5 years.
General Health Risks
Smoking increases your risk of contracting a number of serious diseases that can lead to severe disability and death:
- Lung diseases, such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis
- Cancer of the lungs, bladder, cervix, esophagus, kidney, lips, mouth, pancreas, stomach, throat, and larynx
- Certain types of leukemia
- Strokes
- Heart attacks
- Peripheral vascular disease (a narrowing of the blood vessels)
- Macular degeneration (a leading cause of blindness among the elderly)
- Susceptibility to colds, flu, pneumonia, and bronchitis
Health Risks for Women
Smoking carries additional health risks for women.
- Increased risk of miscarriage or delivering an underweight baby
- Increased risk of stroke, heart attack, and blood clots in the legs for female smokers age 35 and over
Health Risks for Those Around You
The smoke a cigarette emits and the smoke a smoker exhales are referred to as secondhand smoke. This type of smoke has been shown to cause cancer, heart disease, chronic bronchitis, and other illnesses, leading to thousands of deaths a year. Mothers who smoke—particularly those who smoke during pregnancy—increase their babies’ risk of asthma, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and low birth weight. Children consistently exposed to secondhand smoke have a greater susceptibility to colds, bronchitis, and other illnesses.
Appearance
Smoking also affects your looks in negative ways. In particular, smoking causes:
- Wrinkles
- Bad breath
- Yellow teeth and fingernails
Cost
Cigarettes are very expensive. Knowing how much you spend on cigarettes can help you quit. To figure it out, simply add up how much you spend on cigarettes each day, then multiply that number by 365.
The result is the total amount you spend on cigarettes each year. Now multiply that number by 10 to figure out how much you’ll spend on cigarettes in the next 10 years—and know that you’ve just come up with a low estimate, since the cost of cigarettes is certain to increase every year. The amount gets truly staggering when you factor in the possibility of higher life and health insurance fees and the bills you’ll pay if you get a smoking-related disease.
Social Factors
While American society still doesn’t condemn smoking as strongly as, say, heroin addiction, it increasingly frowns upon the habit. Major cities ban smoking in bars and restaurants, many people banish smokers from their cars and houses, and public places such as stadiums and offices forbid smoking. Smoking’s many social drawbacks, from enduring the disapproval of nonsmokers to huddling outside work to smoke on a cold winter day, inspire some smokers to quit.
What Quitting Does for You
Another way to inspire yourself to stop smoking is to focus on all the good things that quitting will do for you. Regardless of how old you are or how many years you’ve smoked, quitting will always improve your health and lengthen your lifespan. Your body will begin to repair itself immediately after you smoke your last cigarette.
Time Elapsed |
Improvement in Your Body |
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20 minutes |
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12 hours |
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24 hours |
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48 hours |
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72 hours |
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2 weeks–
3 months |
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1–9 months |
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1 year |
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5–15 years |
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10 years |
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15 years |
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| Acknowledgments & Disclaimer |
