Not cool to smoke

You see someone doing it on TV and in nearly every movie, when you step on to a bus, at a party or in your own street. Maybe even in your own home someone is smoking a cigarette. Smoking is happening all around us, but little do we know that around the world, smoking now kills five million people every year. On an average, one in three adults worldwide smokes, and smoking kills four out of every ten.

According to the United Nations World Health Organisation, in coming decades, cigarettes will actually kill 500 million people — and all of them have already been born. That’s nine per cent of the present world population. It means that almost one out of every 10 people now alive on earth will die because of tobacco use.

However, the good news is that smoking ‘is’ the single most preventable cause of death and disease. Cigarettes cause more deaths than cocaine, auto accidents, Aids, alcohol, heroin, fire, suicide and homicide put together. The difference is that with smoking you can say no.

Why are kids attracted to smoking?
Kids as young as 10 years are known for taking a drag of cigarettes. Why? Because cigarette smoking is supposed to be cool. The ‘in’ thing. We’ve all seen cigarette advertisements with images of beautiful country scenes, wild horses galloping, and rugged cowboys on horseback or of men in tuxedos with a woman on each side and a cigar in their lips. It tells youngsters that if you want to be macho, in control and have the world at your feet, a cigarette will help you achieve that.

Thus cigarette advertisements are a very powerful weapon attacking the youth and their impressionable minds. According to latest research advertising plays a greater role than peer pressure in getting teens hooked to smoking.

Cigarette advertisements reach our subconscious minds. These advertisements create an association between the addiction of cigarettes and strong, positive images of attractive, healthy people, sports like tennis or mountain climbing, beautiful country scenes, cowboys, masculinity, being a modern woman, being a ‘real person’, and so on. As of 2000, the tobacco industry has been spending over $5 billion annually to advertise its deadly products.

Some teens today say, “I’ll just try it out, just for the heck of it or to fit into my group of friends.” But do you know that a September 2000 study showed that one quarter of 11 to 13-year-olds who smoke as few as two or three cigarettes a day become addicted in just two weeks. Once hooked, the average smoker is unable to stop for 17 years on average. Not to mention the amount of money one would spend to feed this addiction.

It ravages your body
When you are a teenager, you’re young, brimming with vigour and enthusiasm. You feel no one can touch you. As a teenager you hardly give a thought to the risk of disease later in life. But the fact is, cigarettes cause emphysema, lung cancer and heart disease, and four out of every ten smokers later die from their addiction to tobacco. Nearly all of them get hooked in their teens. Today, research reveals, that smoking damages virtually every organ in the body.

A social outcast
Gone are the days when smoking was considered cool and hip. Today, people shudder if your smoke is inhaled by them. The rage today is to lead a vital, healthy life. “When I get in my apartment elevator and there’s a person with a cigarette in there, I involuntarily screw up my nose and immediately climb off the elevator,” says 16-year-old Tania. “If you want to infest your lungs go ahead. But stay away from mine,” she retorts.

In 2006, 17 states in the US passed strong laws requiring 100 per cent smoke-free restaurants, clubs and workplaces. Banning smoking 100 per cent appears to be an idea whose time has come, and it’s tremendously popular with the public as well.

How to quit
When asked why one smokes, one might comment frivolously, ‘I just like to smoke.’ or ‘It’s my choice to smoke.’ The tobacco companies have promoted the idea that smoking is a matter of personal choice. It’s ‘not’ a choice, it’s an addiction. Admitting that you’re smoking more out of addiction than choice will help motivate you to go on to the next steps — taking control of yourself and becoming a non-smoker.

For most smokers, the addiction is half-mental, half-physical. This varies with each individual. The physical portion of the addiction is to nicotine. The psychological part of the addiction is the relaxing sensation of holding a cigarette, engulfed in its wisps of smoke, the rhythmic inhaling and exhaling and that familiar flavour.

When a smoker makes up his mind to quit his mind says, ‘I can stop smoking whenever I want to. It’s under control, no problem.’ But the unconscious mind has been conditioned that cigarettes give pleasure, and that’s all it can focus on. The addicted, unconscious mind says, ‘Give me a cigarette — now!’ It only recognises that a cigarette feels good; it demands a cigarette without regard to right or wrong.

However, when you ‘decide’ firmly that you want to quit with effort and will power, the unconscious mind gradually gets used to not smoking, and the urges to smoke dies away.

For those who have repeatedly failed at quitting in the past, it’s comforting to learn that most smokers in fact fail several times before stopping successfully. Your past failures are not a proof that you are unable to quit. Instead, they are part of the normal journey towards becoming a non-smoker.

If you are smoking, don’t be afraid to get help. If you are using tobacco now, or experimenting with it, see the family doctor or talk to an adult. It’s okay to talk to someone and get help.

Once you quit, the urge to smoke would gradually diminish, even disappear. But occasional surprise ‘attacks’ of wanting a cigarette badly have to be fought with. Usually these attacks sneak up during moments of stress or when hanging out with friends.

But if you have ‘just one’ cigarette the next day you would want one more and all your efforts will go down the drain.

Living with a smoker
If you are living with a smoker, don’t be a nag about their smoking habit. Ask for reasonable changes instead. That doesn’t mean that you don’t ask them to try and quit.

Ask but occasionally, and be brief, and try to use loving tones and words. Make them know that you need them to be around for a long time and live a long healthy life. The more you nag and pester the smoker, more the chances of getting irritated and stubborn and refusing to quit. That’s just making the situation worse.

But do protest if their second-hand smoke is being inhaled by you. That hurts you and so it is your business. Request them to go out of doors to smoke.

nice work done dear...

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Every day is an opportunity to be creative.

good suggestion......

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REBEL

good nice sharing
waseem abbas tabish

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~It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible only in one way.~