I came across blogger Therese Borchard’s personal -and very powerful- list of reasons to quit smoking. It is so good that I am posting it here in it’s entirety.

"You’re almost there. You want to quit. In fact, 80 percent of your brain is sure you can. But 20 percent insists that you can’t. How do you make it over to the other side without falling SPLAT on your face?

Do this. Make a list. Of ten reasons you should quit.

Here’s mine.

1. Smoking Made Me Sick

For real. Within a few minutes of inhaling a few cigarettes, my throat would start to tickle and my head would begin hurt. The day after a binge, I’d wake up with a nasty cold that kept me in bed when I had a million things to do.

Smoking shrinks your blood vessels, clogs up your lungs, and wears down your immune system. Your body is less able to fight off bacteria and viruses, so, yes, you get sick. And there’s of course the lung cancer and increased chances of heart attack, stroke, and other serious health conditions.

2. My Husband Told Me I Smelled

He didn’t issue an ultimatum: “It’s either me or the lung rockets.”
But he did, one night right after we had sex, say, “You smell like smoke. And it’s not sexy.” I could have, theoretically, told him to visit a place where there are no lemonade stands. But I knew he was just being honest with me, and that I needed to file that information in the “reasons I should quit” box.

3. I Wanted to Set a Good Example for My Kids

I got tired of hiding it from them. It was getting complicated. I rationalized that smoking in front of 11-month-old Katherine was okay because she would never remember it and she would be unable to tell on me. But three-year-old David could very well process it and file the picture (and definitely debrief the rest of the house on the white candy sticks). It was too much of a risk. One day I finally said to myself, “Self, if it’s so important to hide this habit from my kids, shouldn’t I quit?” And there was silence.

4. I Looked Stupid Lighting Up After a Run

You can picture it, right? Here I was working so hard on my wellness
program: eating lots of greens, loading up on Omega-3 fatty acids, trying to get adequate sleep, meditating, and of course exercising five times a week. So when I’d light up after a good run, you can imagine the stares. The snapshot was like a Sesame Street episode where you have to pick out one thing that doesn’t belong in the picture. That one thing was the white stick.

5. It Sent the Wrong Message

A few months after college graduation, when I was working at my first job, my mom told me to dress for the position that I wanted… to send the subtle but effective messages whenever possible. Her wisdom translated to smoking breaks. By going out of the building for a few puffs with some co-workers, I was sending a very direct message, and not the right one. So much for the nice suit.

6. I Ran Out of Money

You’ve probably tallied it up, and it kills you, doesn’t it? Knowing how much cash you are squandering for your fix? An average pack of cigs costs about $4.50 today. Let’s say you smoke a pack a day. You’re throwing out $135 a month, and $1620 a year. It’s a bloody expensive habit. I started to see it as babysitting money. And then it hit me. I’d much rather get a sitter and go out to a nice dinner than to be a slave to the white sticks.

7. It Made Me Depressed

Given my delicate biochemistry, I need to avoid all foods, drinks, or chemicals that make me depressed. That’s essentially why I eliminated booze from my life. It’s a depressant: my hangovers involved more than a headache. Smoking cigarettes can also increase the chance of developing depression. By a whopping 41 percent, according to a new study from the University of Navarra in Spain and the Harvard School of Public Health. Researchers discovered there was a direct correlation between smoking and depression among the 8,556 participants.

8. It Was Bad for My Image

I realize I’m not the perfect poster girl for mental health, but I do like to practice what I preach. So if I’m writing about my addictions with a cigarette in one hand and a brandy in the other–all while dispensing smart advice on how you all can break free of your habits–I’m going to feel like a mongo hypocrite. And that creates stress, which is bad for my mental health. So, for as long as I’m in the business of writing mental health material, I need to keep a sort-of clean image.

9. It Looks Ugly

I will always remember the sight at this elegant wedding I attended of a gorgeous bride with a cigarette in her mouth. Take away the white stick, and she could have posed for the magazine of her choice. She was petite and exquisite. Add the lung rocket, and she looked, well, like she had just been dropped off on a motorcycle to her nuptial vows. It was just not a good look at all. Not in anyway. And I started to think to myself, “Yipes. Is that what I look like when I’m smoking?”

10. I Wanted to Be Free

All addictions enslave you. They place you on their schedule, and you have no say in the matter. If you miss your afternoon smoke break, you are a wreck by the evening. There is not much you can do. You grow irritable. You need your fix. NOW.

I don’t like belonging to anyone. Marriage has been a hard enough transition for me. I like to make my own rules. When I want. How I want. So because of that, I had to bid adios to my inflexible friend, to the addiction that wouldn’t let me determine what I did with my afternoon."

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Smoking persists as a major risk factor for death from heart disease and cancer in adults who already have heart disease and receive good medical therapy, according to research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Current smokers more than doubled their risk of death from heart disease and cancer and all causes in the three-year study period. Current smokers also were at increased risk of heart attack and stroke compared to former smokers and nonsmokers.

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The more movie scenes of smoking they watch, the more likely Mexican-American youths are to experiment with smoking, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and Dartmouth College report in the December issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

The three-year prospective study of 1,286 Mexican-American adolescents showed the percentage of new experimenters increased from about 5 percent among those with little or no exposure to nearly 30 percent for those who saw up to 600 smoking scenes. The effect was dose-dependent, with experimentation linearly correlated with movie exposure.

"We suspect the greater impact among Mexican-born might occur because movie-viewing is part of the socialization process for those not born here,” said lead author Anna Wilkinson, Ph.D., assistant professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Epidemiology in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences.

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It comes as no surprise that secondhand tobacco smoke is completely toxic to pets. Your dog and cat share some common physiology with you, so many things that are toxic to you are also toxic to them.

Birds lucky enough to be free of their cages but end up sitting on a smoker’s nicotine-coated hand often develop dermatitis and end up pulling out their own feathers.

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The next time you are watching an old Hollywood movie from the 30s, 40s, or 50s, look at how Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Henry Fonda (and many, many other idols of ‘cool’) just can’t seem to ever stop smoking! The Los Angeles Times as well as some other media now revealed the reason why…

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

 

Actors from the golden age of Hollywood were paid thousands of dollars by tobacco companies to smoke and endorse their products.

A study reveals how more than 200 stars, including matinee idols John Wayne, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, all benefited and one firm paid more than $3m in today’s money in a year.

In return, the tobacco firms funded print and radio adverts for the stars and their films.

The research by the University of California, published in the journal Tobacco Control, shows how film classics of the Thirties and Forties still help to advertise smoking today.

The extent of smoking promotion was revealed following the release of documents from anti-smoking court cases.

Gable, Tracy, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford were all top earners in 1937, each taking $10,000 ($146,583 today) in one year’s sponsorship from American Tobacco, makers of the Lucky Strike brand.

Bette Davis and Betty Gable were also among 50 household names giving endorsements-with others such as Bob Hope paid $2,500 ($36,646).

Deals started as talkies took off with Jazz Singer’ star Al Jolson testifying that Lucky Strike was ‘the cigarette of the acting profession’.

The study, which concentrated on the period between 1927 and 1951, points to classic films such as Casablanca and Now, Voyager that feature prominent smoking scenes, and says glamorous publicity posters helped to ‘perpetuate public tolerance’.

Other brands that benefited from the celebrity endorsement included Old Gold, Chesterfield and Camel.

 

The researchers claim that as a result, more young people took up smoking during the era because they were influenced by Hollywood stars.

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Great news: After France and Italy had smoking bans for respectively 1 and 3 years, the countries had up to 15% less occurrences of heart attacks! Research confirms similiar results in Ireland and Scotland.

I guess the message here is: Stop Smoking and have measurably better heart health in only one year! 

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT 

French researchers announced a striking 15% decrease in admissions of patients with myocardial infarction to emergency wards since the public ban on smoking came into effect in restaurants, hotels and casinos in France last January. The announcement was made on 23 February by the National Sanitary Institute.

Similar results were published in Italy on 12 February by the Environmental Health Authority: researchers in Rome found an 11.2 percent reduction of acute coronary events since the January 2005 smoking ban took effect in Italy.

Prof David Thomas, of the European Society of Cardiology and a Senior Cardiologist in the Centre Hospitalier Pitié- Salpêtrière in Paris: "(…) (S)tatistics show the same tendency professionals have already observed in Ireland and Scotland when these countries introduced their own bans on tobacco.

To me, the most striking aspect in this study is the reduction of pollution inside cafés and restaurants by over 35%. Passive smoking has been shown to increase the risk of coronary heart disease and the recent smoking ban is obviously having a beneficial effect on both smokers and non-smokers."

Smoking bans can save lives.

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