Addiction Recovery

Why Quit Smoking?

May 3rd, 2008 Filed under: Uncategorized — Addiction Recovery Author

Long term smoking can be detrimental to your health. The estimated loss of years is between 13.2 and 14.5 depending on your sex according to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention. On top of that, smoking related illness may be limiting if you want to be active because it can cause shortness of breath, making it harder to work, play and just getting around. Not only can smoking cause lung cancer but it also is a risk factor for cancer of the mouth, voice box or larynx, throat or pharynx, esophagus, bladder, kidney, pancreas, cervix, stomach and some forms of leukemia. There are a number of other lung problems including pneumonia and COPD or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Also, smokers are twice as likely to die from heart attacks as are non-smokers. There are a number of blood vessel diseases along with peripheral vascular disease. This along with blindness due to macular degeneration and risks of blood clots and miscarriages for women should be enough for most to at least consider quitting.

The benefits of quitting are many and varied. If you contact your physician or someone at just about any southern Chicago hospital you will probably get the help you need to quit smoking. There are many different ways to quit from cold turkey and just quitting, which not everyone can do, to using nicotine gum or other sources of nicotine. One of the benefits of quitting is living longer. No matter how long you have smoked, you can add life by quitting today. The quality of life is improved and if you have had more than your share of illness you may see that also improve. There are no guarantees but the statistics show you are likely to be healthier. Just talk to an ex-smoker and listen to what they say.

If you talk to an expert at one of the hospitals in the Chicago area you may find the same information that the Surgeon General has reported for the risks of smoking and what may be the benefits of quitting. These include living longer, decreasing the risk of lung cancer, other cancers, heart attack and the need for a cardiac rehab program, stroke, and chronic lung disease. Women who quit before pregnancy or during the first three to four months of pregnancy reduce the risk of having a low birth-weight baby.

These are just the major things to improve. A few of the minor things include better smelling breath, no yellowing of your fingers, your cloths, car and home will not smell of smoke, and yellowing f your teeth. According to the Surgeon General report in 1990 just twelve hours after quitting the carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal, two weeks to three months after quitting your circulation improves and your lung function increases, one to nine months after quitting coughing and shortness of breath decreases, the cilia regain normal function in your lungs which increases the lungs ability to clean themselves. If you can quit and not smoke for fifteen years your chances of coronary heart disease is that of a non-smoker. It does pay to quit now.

If you want to quit smoking contact your doctor, find a southern Chicago hospital with a smoking cessation program or any one of the many hospitals in the Chicago area with a smoking cessation program. Do it now to avoid having to potentially have to visit one of these hospitals for a cardiac rehab program later in life due to continuing to smoke.