Smoking Facts
What are the most important smoking facts? How about these ones:
1) You will quit smoking eventually. Either by deliberately quitting or by some other means. The “some other means” is likely to be caused by your smoking if you continue to smoke (meaning, more than a 50% chance that smoking will directly or indirectly cause your death).
2) You waste almost 1 full month out of each year if you smoke a pack a day. This is crazy. And true. If you smoke a pack a day of cigarettes, then each year you spend almost an entire month of your life in the act of smoking. That is some insane loss of productivity right there.
photo credit: paris_corrupted
Consider the fact that you only have about 16 waking hours each day. And that if you smoke a pack per day, then you are wasting about 10 to 15 percent of your time. Forget about wasted money and the insane health risks for a minute. You are also throwing away an entire month out of each year with the mindless act of smoking.
Time that you could be spending doing other things….like enjoying your family, having fun with friends, exercising, living healthy, etc.
3) You underestimate the cost of smoking. If you didn’t, then you would go through the pain of withdrawal and quit. It is just that simple. How many of us would turn back the clock at the end of our lives and decide to go back and quit smoking, knowing that we are dying 15 years early? Probably all of us. But when we are smoking we do not see this level of drama in our future. It will happen to “someone else.”
The other costs of smoking are just as devastating. Most people are spending at least a thousand per year on the cigarettes themselves, and some people are spending 2 or even 3 thousand per year.
And then there is the cost to our health. Both short term costs and long term costs. In the short term, we don’t exercise as much, we have shortness of breath, and we suffer from more colds and illnesses. In the long term, we die 10 to 15 years early on average, and go through a ridiculous amount of hospital bills that otherwise would have been avoided. The estimates on this are just sickening, especially when you factor in the rising cost of health care.
Most people just calculate the price of a pack of smokes when they think about how affordable smoking is. But the smoking facts state that you better carefully review all of the costs of smoking, otherwise you are just deluding yourself. Figure in the missed time that you waste by smoking almost a full month out of every year of your life. Think of how much more productive you could be, how much more time you could spend with your family and friends, and so on. It’s just not worth it.
Can you afford to keep smoking? How much are 10 to 15 years of your life worth to you? How good do cigarettes really taste?
Those are the facts.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve been reading your articles this morning – more than 10 and I still have another 10-15 open in tabs in my browser. You are writing pure gold here Patrick. These are the most common-sense ideas about addictions that I’ve ever heard before. I know you’re coming from a place of having used in the past – and yet, so many others have too and can’t write about it in such a lucid way.
The difference is that you’re able to see from a unique perspective so many things that were going on with the addictions – cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs. You’re able to observe the situation and write about these things in a way that makes it crystal clear to me – and I hope a good portion of your readers.
You’re cutting out the BS about religion, hope, and other romantic ideas and sticking with the reality. The reality of this + this = this. Action rules supreme, not hoping god will help you do something… or trusting yourself to do the right thing.
Kicking addiction requires a total change of life that many are not either willing to do, or know they need to do. After reading your articles I know – there is no other way than to completely change the old way of life and create something new. Create a new individual that doesn’t have the same associations with people that were copacetic with drug use… smoking… alcohol.
I’ve not been addicted to anything in my life – except maybe exercise, but even that, I’m not fanatical about anymore. A walk up the steps of a small mountain daily is a good way to clear my head and get some fitness in. I have been a counselor in the past – rehabilition counseling. I have an MA from a school in Florida and have worked with people that were addicted to various drugs.
I wish I had access to your insight back then – written, audio, video – whatever. I think the potential counselors have to help people – armed with this knowledge you’ve painstakingly shared here – is fantastic! This entire site should be mandatory reading for all MA students in Rehab counseling programs! It sounds dramatic, but I’m not stretching it at all – I believe it – 100%.
Thanks for sharing this with the world Patrick. I know you’re doing heaps of good for those that need it most. I’ll help where I can to spread the word!
Cheers my friend, MF
Denial is the hallmark symptom of addiction. You are so right. In order to get off cigarettes it is necessary to have an adjustment in thinking and to stop the denial.
Smoking hurts the smoker, the family and the planet.
People don’t need to be told over and over again why smoking is bad – they need help understanding why they continue to do it even though they know it is hurting them.
That is the only way out of any addiction.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publish interesting smoking facts: Approximately 20.9% (44.5 million) adults currently smoke. Of these, 81.3% (36.1 million) smoke every day, and 18.7% (8.3 million) smoke some days. Among those who currently smoke every day, 40.5% (14.6 million) report that they had stopped smoking for at least 1 day during the preceding 12 months because they were trying to quit. Among the estimated 42.4% (90.2 million) of persons who had ever smoked, 50.6% (45.6 million) were former smokers.
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