Dangers of Smoking

We hear of people wishing for intentional or assisted suicide all the time: due to health or finance related deterioration. Guess what? If you’re a smoker, you could be one of them in the future. Don’t pass over this as some kind of typically scary “dangers of smoking” story.

Going head downwards, mouth or throat cancer comes first. Smoking is the main culprit behind this disease as 90% of throat or mouth cancer patients have been smokers. The symptoms of the disease include a sore in the mouth or around the lips that stubbornly refuses to heal; pain, bleeding, numbness in the mouth without any specific reason; a perennially sore throat and difficulty in chewing and swallowing. And, remember, you will have to live like this on a daily basis.

Next in line would be the quite common case of lung cancer. Almost all smokers eventually get lung cancer. There is no statistical dispute over this statement. Now visualize a life with lung cancer. First thing in the morning, after you wake up, you realize you are having a slight difficulty in breathing. You try to take a deep breath, an act that causes considerable pain in the chest that could linger for hours. When you cough the lung tries to eject the poison you have smoked in. The result being you will cough up blood or bloody mucus. Effectively, you’re hit by fatigue before you even begin the day. Naturally all enthusiasm for life gets drained.

Cardiovascular disease is our last stop in our health-related dangers of smoking. It is a disease of the blood vessels. Smoking implies you inhale 3,000 bad chemicals that not only ups the ante of your bad cholesterol but also clogs up your blood vessels. This clogging can happen anywhere. If the blood vessels leading to your heart are clogged, you will get a heart attack; if your kidney is affected you will have high blood pressure and/or kidney failure; if your brain is affected the consequences are stroke, collapse and even paralysis. Clogging of vessels leading to the brain is the most fatal. If any of these illnesses plague you, only pots of money in the bank can save you.

Finally, you’ve wasted a fortune on smoking, almost $100,000 if you smoke only a pack a day for 20 years. That is just the direct cost of smoking. Add up the following: the number of cigarette packets you buy daily; the potential lower salary you receive because of your habit; higher health insurance bill; and the extra cost towards maintenance of teeth, laundry, and car/house cleaning. If my calculations are correct, if you would have earned interest on your smoking habit throughout the years, you could have easily been a millionaire. Talk about post-retirement pleasure trips. 

Sounds harsh, but it is the bitter truth. There is only one way out of these dangers of smoking. Quit smoking. Today!