Workers in quit-smoking programs give some general suggestions to help smokers break the habit. The first day is the hardest, they tell smokers. After that, each day is easier. A good start is to throw away everything to do with smoking such as unsmoked cigarettes, lighters, and ashtrays for example. Keep a supply of gum, cough drops, and fruit at hand. Get lots of sleep and plenty of exercise. Allow time for recreation, and try to get outdoors for some vigorous physical activity several times a week.
Then, when the urge to smoke comes, take a few deep breaths, drink large quantities of water or juice, and chew gum or snack or light foods. The longer a person stays away from smoking, the better the chances of not stating again. Most of those who return to smoking do it soon after stopping. A sudden crisis, such as school or career setback or a broken romance, may make the ex-smoker light up again. That one single cigarette can start the nicotine dependency all over again.
Some people start smoking again for the opposite reason. Everything is going so well, the former smoker thinks, that one cigarette won t do any harm. Being around people who smoke may also a person who has just quit back into smoking.
Ninety percent of those who smoke after a year will not resume. As a rule of thumb, anyone who has not smoked for two years is considered cured of nicotine dependency. And this is not merely control of the habit. It is a cure(1-89).
When nicotine takes a person and turns them into an addict and makes their life dependent of the drug. Nicotine has succeeded and the person has failed. This is what goes on in the world daily and it not only happens to anyone it happens to women, children, the elderly, and unfortunately to people who already suffer from serious diseases due to smoking. Smoking addiction is one of the leading causes of death for both men and women because of the serious life threatening diseases that evolve from being an addict. Because of this paper I now have a wide understanding of why people start smoking. Why they become addicts and dependent of nicotine, what they go through to try to quit, why most of the time they are not successful when trying to quit, and what it takes to successfully quit. For the hundreds of lucky ones each year that accomplish their goal of quitting I admire them. Unfortunately for society millions become addicts each year also. Before writing this paper I looked at all smokers as ignorant human beings including my father. I now understand that they are merely victims. My number one goal in life now is to someday day heal my father of his scar in life, and hear him say I no longer need those dam cigarettes I quit.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Greenhaven Press, Opposing Viewpoints Chemical Dependency, Minnesota, Greenhaven Press, 1989.
2. Kluger, Richard, Ashes to Ashes, New York, Random House, 1996.
3. The Free Press, The Facts About Drug Abuse , New York, Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1980.
4. Bram, Leon, U.S.A. , Funk & Wagnells New Encyclopedia, New York, Funk & Wagnells Incorporated, 1988, vol.24, pg.39.
5. Jose Mora, parking attendant, L.A.C.C.O., Los Angeles, California, personal interview on smoking addiction, Los Angeles California, May 16, 1998.
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